Environmental Capacity and Sustainability of European Regional Airports: A Case Study

Airport capacity has always been perceived in the traditional sense as the number of aircraft operations during a specified time corresponding to a tolerable level of average delay and it mostly depends on the airside characteristics, on the fleet mix variability and on the ATM. The adoption of the Directive 2002/30/EC in the EU countries drives the stakeholders to conceive airport capacity in a different way though. Airport capacity in this sense is fundamentally driven by environmental criteria, and since acoustical externalities represent the most important factors, those are the ones that could pose a serious threat to the growth of airports and to aviation market itself in the short-medium term. The importance of the regional airports in the deregulated market grew fast during the last decade since they represent spokes for network carriers and a preferential destination for low-fares carriers. Not only regional airports have witnessed a fast and unexpected growth in traffic but also a fast growth in the complaints for the nuisance by the people living near those airports. In this paper the results of a study conducted in cooperation with the airport of Bologna G. Marconi are presented in order to investigate airport acoustical capacity as a defacto constraint of airport growth.

Authors:

• Nicola Gualandi
• Luca Mantecchini
• Davide Serrau

Keywords:

• Airport acoustical capacity
• airport noise
• air traffic noise
• sustainability of regional airports.

References:

[1] B. Graham and C. Guyer, "Environmental sustainability, airport capacity
and European air transport liberalization: irreconcilable goals," Journal
of Transport Geography, vol. 7, pp. 165-180, 1999.
[2] R. Horonjeff, F.X. McKelvey, "Planning and Design of Airports," Ed.
McGraw-Hill: New York, 1993.
[3] K. Hume, M. Gregg, C. Thomas and D. Terranova, "Complaints Caused
by Aircraft Operations: an Assessment of Annoyance by Noise Level an
Time of the Day," Journal of Air Transport Management, vol. 9, pp.
153-160, 2003.
[4] M. Ignaccolo, "Environmental capacity: noise pollution at Catania-
Fontanarossa international airport," Journal of Air Transport
Management, vol. 6, pp. 191-199, 2000.
[5] The Manchester Metropolitan University, "The Concept of Airport
Environmental Capacity," Department of Environmental and
Geographical Science, October 2002.
[6] H. M. E. Miedema and C. G. M. Oudshoorn, "Annoyance from
transportation noise: relationship with exposure metrics DNL and DENL
and confidence intervals", Environmental Health Prospectives, vol. 109,
pp. 409-416, 2001.
[7] R. de Neufville and A. R. Odoni, "Airport Systems: Planning, Design
and Management," Ed. McGraw-Hill: New York, 2003.
[8] R. L. Paullin "Capacity and Noise Relationships for Major Hub
Airports," proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 58, pp. 307-313, March 1970.
[9] R. Rylander and M. Björkman, "Annoyance by aircraft noise around
small airports", Journal of Sound and Vibration, 205 (4), PP.533-537,
1997.
[10] M. J. T. Smith, "Aircraft Noise", Ed. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1989.
[11] P. Upham, C. Thomas, D. Gillingwater and D. Raper, "Environmental
Capacity and Airport Operations: Current issues and Future Prospects,"
Journal of Air Transport Management, vol. 9, pp 145-151, 2003.
[12] P. Upham, D. Raper, C. Thomas, M. McLellan, M. Lever, A. Lieuwen,
"Environmental Capacity and European Air Transport: Stakeholder
Opinion and Implications for modeling," Journal of Air Transport
Management, vol. 10, pp 199-205, 2004.