the essential
To limit night flights in Toulouse, the prefect of Haute-Garonne is considering banning takeoffs from the airport after midnight and capping the number of arrivals after that time.
Change of foot at the prefecture. To limit the number of night flights from Toulouse-Blagnac airport, the prefect Pierre-André Durand, who had launched an impact study a year ago, has just added a fifth scenario to the four studied so far. A scenario that therefore seems to be his preference.
So far, scenario 2 plans to strictly prohibit departures between midnight and 6 a.m. Arrivals are regulated only by a ban on scheduling after 11:30 p.m. That is to say, it is forbidden for a company to include in its regular flight schedule the arrival of a commercial passenger flight after that time. This does not prevent a delayed plane from landing. To the great displeasure of local residents who suffer from the noise of these flights.
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A quota of “switching” flights
The new scenario, No. 2 called “secure”, provides for an additional restriction on late arrivals. The number of flights likely to arrive after midnight without having been scheduled would thus be capped. Each airline would be entitled to a quota of these flights called “switching”.
The prefect, who mentioned this new hypothesis in a meeting last week with local authorities, sets out in a letter to the various stakeholders the advantages he sees in it. This scenario, he explains, would make it possible “to guarantee control of the number of arrivals in this midnight-6am period” and would offer “airlines a certain flexibility” while “ensuring the maintenance of the economic and industrial activity of the aeronautics sector”.
The five scenarios must be presented at the end of the month to representatives of the airport management, its shareholders, airlines and local residents. The collective against air pollution in the Toulouse metropolitan area has already made it known that it is in favour of scenario 4, that of a curfew with a ban on departures and arrivals after 11:30 p.m. and a cap after 10 p.m.
For the collective, reluctant to the new option, it would be “more effective to establish a curfew with a ceiling of possible exemptions rather than granting a right within the framework of quotas.”
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