Night Flight Bans in Germany

To support the considerations for a night flight ban at Vienna Airport and to classify such a demand in existing night flight bans / night flight restrictions, an overview of night flight bans currently in place at European airports is given below. The data for these 10 airports is taken from the website “Das Fluglärm Portal”.

Following the textual presentation, the data is also presented in tabular form for easier and clearer comparison, supplemented by the flight movement figures for 2019. I then present my findings on these data.

Hamburg Airport (HAM)

Night flight restriction from 23:00 – 06:00

Exceptions:

• Emergency and alternate flights for meteorological, technical or safety reasons
• Night mail flights
• Flights in medical assistance and disaster relief operations
• Search and rescue flights
• Police flights
• Flights with special permits from the City of Hamburg

Special regulations

• Delayed aircraft whose scheduled arrival time is before 23:00 may take off and land until 24:00 if the delay can be proven to be unavoidable.

Berlin Airport (BER)

Night flight restriction from 00:00 – 05:00

Ban

Regular scheduled flights in the core night time from 0:00 – 5:00 a.m.

Exceptions:

• Deviation landings for meteorological, technical or other safety reasons
• Flights in medical assistance and disaster relief missions
• Government flights
• Night mail flights
• Flights with special permission

Special regulations

• Between 05:00 and 06:00 and between 23:00 and 24:00, an average of no more than 31 aircraft movements are permitted.
• Between 05:00 and 05:30 and between 23:30 and 24:00 no scheduled flights may take place. These times are exclusively available for delayed or early flights.

Leipzig/Halle Airport (LEJ)

Night flight restriction for passenger traffic from 23:30 – 05:30.

No night flight restriction for cargo traffic.

Exceptions:

• Flights to provide assistance in emergency and disaster situations
• Unavoidable flights for the provision of medical care and the fulfilment of humanitarian tasks
• landings for meteorological, technical and other flight safety reasons.
• Survey flights of the German Aviation Safety Agency
• Police and military flights
• Flights with special permission

Special regulations

• Late landings and take-offs from 23:30 – 24:00 and early landings from 05:00 – 05:30 are permitted.

Düsseldorf Airport (DUS)

Night flight restriction from 22:00 (take-offs)/ 23:00 (landings) – 06:00

Exceptions:

• Landings out of the way for meteorological, technical or other safety reasons
• Flights for disaster relief, medical assistance and other emergencies
• Surveying flights of the German air navigation services
• Propeller aircraft up to 9 tonnes with noise certification
• Flights with special permission

Further regulations:

• For Chapter 3 aircraft (bonus list of the BMVBS), scheduled landings are permitted until 11:00 p.m. and delayed landings are permitted until 11:30 p.m.
• Jet aircraft of airlines with a maintenance focus (home base) in Düsseldorf are permitted to land late until 24:00 and between 05:00 and 06:00.

Frankfurt Airport (FRA)

Night flight restriction for planned movements from 23:00 – 05:00

Exceptions:

• Deviation landings for meteorological, technical or other safety reasons
• Flights in medical assistance and disaster relief operations
• Evacuation flights
• Flights in the special public interest
• Flights with special permission

Special regulations

• Between 22:00 and 23:00 hrs and 05:00 and 06:00 hrs (night-time marginal hours) an average of 133 scheduled aircraft movements are permitted per night. This average value may not be   exceeded not be exceeded in relation to the calendar year.
• Aircraft may take off and land between 22:00 and 23:00 or 05:00 and 06:00, which comply with the noise certification values in accordance with Chapter 4 and whose take-off or landing has been the day before by the airport coordinator.
• Late landings between 23:00 and 24:00 hours are permitted, provided that the delay is not already the delay does not already result from the flight schedule.
• Use of the north-west runway is prohibited between 23:00 and 05:00.

Stuttgart Airport (STR)

Night flight restriction from 23:00 to 06:00 for take-offs and from 23:30 – 06:00 for landings.

Exceptions:

• Delayed landings until midnight with scheduled landing time before 11:30 p.m.
• Night mail movements (must comply with the requirements of ICAO Annex 16, Ch. 4.
• Air movements for medical assistance and disaster relief.
• Emergency and diversionary flights for meteorological, technical or other safety reasons.
• Survey flights of the German Air Traffic Control (DFS).
• Military aircraft movements
• Propeller-driven aircraft (> 8.618 t must comply with the requirements of ICAO Annex 16,   Ch. 4 and <8.618 t shall comply with the requirements of Ch. 10.
• Flights with exemption by the air supervisory authority

Munich Airport (MUC)

Night flight regulation from 22:00 – 06:00 with modern, restrictive noise quota system

Core Night (00:00 – 05:00)

Permissible:

• Night mail flights
• Survey flights of German Air Traffic Control

Permitted exceptions:

• Flights in medical assistance and disaster relief missions and to fulfil police duties.
• Landings for meteorological, technical and other flight safety reasons.
• Flights in justified exceptional cases, approved by the licensing authority.

Night curfew hours (22:00 – 24:00 and 05:00 – 06:00)

• Aircraft listed in the so-called bonus list of the Federal Ministry of Transport may operate during the night hours of the Federal Ministry of Transport. This does not apply to delayed movements or early landings with aircraft whose noise certificates comply with at least comply with at least ICAO Chapter 3.

In addition, the aircraft movements (in the night-time marginal hours) must meet one of the following licensing requirements:

• A maximum of 28 scheduled flight movements in scheduled and charter traffic per night
• Flights by airlines that maintain a home base in Munich.
• Aircraft which, at the noise measurement points in the vicinity of Munich Airport do not produce an individual noise level higher than 75 dB(A) on average (Munich List).
• Training and practice flights.
• In addition, night flight operations are only permitted if the total noise generated by all night flights   does not exceed a specified annual noise volume (noise quota). In addition, the calculated energy-equivalent continuous sound level may not exceed (Leq) on the average night of a calendar year at the points of intersection of the flight paths with the boundary line of the combined day and night protection area may not exceed 50 dB(A).

Luxembourg Airport (LUX)

Night flight restriction from 23:00 – 06:00

Exceptions:

• Emergency and diversionary landings for meteorological, technical or other safety reasons.
• Delayed flights
• Government flights
• Flights on medical assistance or disaster relief missions.
• Flights in search and rescue operations

Zurich Airport (ZRH)

Night flight ban from 23:30 – 06:00

Special regulations:

From 23:00 – 23:30 only take-offs and landings of delayed flights are allowed.

Warsaw Airport (WAW)

Night flight restriction from 23:30 – 05:30

Exceptions:

• Emergency and diversionary landings for meteorological, technical or other safety reasons
• Delayed flights
• Government flights
• Military flights
• Flights in medical assistance or disaster relief operations
• Search and rescue flights

Analysis of the above data

Flight ban times

A comparison of the start and end times shows that they are predominantly between 23:00 and 06:00. Some airports have later start times of 23:30h and 24:00h and earlier end times of 05:30h and 05:00h. An exception is Düsseldorf Airport, where the flight ban begins at 22:00 for take-offs and 23:00 for landings. A distinction between take-offs and landings for the flight ban also exists at Stuttgart Airport. There, however, it is 23:00 for take-offs and 23:30 for landings.

Munich Airport has a clearly different regulation. Here, the flight ban/restriction begins at 22:00 and ends at 06:00, but the first 2 hours and the last hour are designated as night border times, during which special rules apply. In addition, there is a noise quota here.

Exceptions

The (standard) exceptions show a relatively uniform picture. Some types of such exceptions, although not completely uniformly formulated, occur at all airports, others only at some. It is striking that no exceptions at all are provided for at Zurich Airport. It would therefore be necessary to check whether these exceptions (or basic flight authorisations) are regulated elsewhere.

Exceptions that occur everywhere are:

• Medical assistance and disaster relief
• Meteorological, technical or other safety evasive flights
• Exceptional permission
• Exceptions that occur at some airports
• Night mail flights
• Survey flights of DFS
• Military and/or police flights
• Search and rescue flights
• Evacuation flights
• Propeller aircrafts up to and over just under 9 t with different noise certificates.

It would probably be necessary to investigate when the individual night flight bans were enacted and whether more specific older formulations are not contained in more general more recent ones. In any case, these exceptions do not mean the large number of night flights, possibly with the exception of night mail flights. Figures on this could not be found.

Special rules or further regulations

These regulations mainly deal with the handling of delays and early arrivals. These regulations appear similar and yet are quite differentiated. This ranges from the provision that delayed flights are permitted up to 1 hour after the start of the night ban if the delay was demonstrably unavoidable, to numerical limits on such flights, restrictions according to noise classification and additional exemptions for home base aircraft. Frankfurt allows an average of 133 scheduled flights/night, whereby this average may not be exceeded in a calendar year. This means a cap of 48,545 scheduled flights per year between 22:00 and 23:00 and between 05:00 and 06:00. In addition, flights of Chapter 4 aircraft are permitted during this time if they have been approved by the airport coordinator at the latest on the previous day. Furthermore, delayed landings between 23:00 and 24:00 are permitted if the delay is not already apparent from the flight plan.

Munich Airport has a completely different regulation. Here, flights by aircraft included in the bonus list of the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs (BMVBS) are permitted during the night margins. Exceptions to this are delayed and early landings with Chapter 3 aircraft. In addition, a maximum of 28 scheduled and charter flights per night are permitted from home base airlines, which cause a maximum of 75 dB(A) of noise at the measuring points in the vicinity of the airport (Munich List). Furthermore, training and exercise flights are permitted during the night hours.

In Munich, there is also the fact that night flight operations are only permitted if the total aircraft noise generated by all night flights does not exceed a specified annual noise volume (noise quota). In addition, the calculated energy-equivalent continuous sound level (Leq) shall not exceed 50 dB(A) on the average night of a calendar year at the intersection points of the flight paths with the boundary line of the combined day and night protection area. However, it was not possible to find out how high the said noise quota is and how the 50 dB(A) is complied with at the said boundary line, or where it runs.

For all these special rules, one would need figures to assess them. Such figures for flights in the individual exemption types could not be found. One figure for Frankfurt Airport can be mentioned here. By the end of August, 24,144 aircraft movements were carried out between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. in 2019. This corresponds to 7.1 per cent of all take-offs and landings.

Nevertheless, it is very interesting to compare how night flight restrictions are regulated at the 10 airports listed.