british airways

August 14th 2013- British Airways, along with HACAAN, National Air Traffic Service (NAT) and Heathrow Airport, participated in a trial that successfully reduced the noise issue at Heathrow.

Heathrow airport is classified as one of the world’s busiest airports. Almost  10,000 people live under the flight paths to the terminal and hence, suffer from the noise of the aircrafts on the daily basis.


Around 17 aircrafts land at Heathrow every morning between 4: 30 to 6:00 am. By changing the routes of early morning flights at Heathrow, people now experience decreased levels of noise, Enabling them to sleep comfortably,

Legal experts still doubt if this attempt would sustain in the long term, as the 3rd runway at Heathrow is expected to be accomplished not earlier than 2025.

Another short term solution proposed is running the current two runways on mixed mode operations i.e. both runways should be used for take-off and landing.

However, this would increase the noise level for 20 hours a day, much greater than the current experienced noise level.

 ”This is the first time we have worked with the aviation industry in this way. Although the trial had some problems which would need to be addressed in any future experiments, to bring relief to 100,000 people is a considerable achievement” ,head of HACAAN commended the efforts of the parties involved in the initiative.

With this step, British Airways continues its expedition of service with commitment.