Wathelet dispersion plan for Brussels Airport

[White Light]

why is taking the shortest route after take off ridiculous? It saves a lot of fuel to start with

Because it may mean flying over areas with a high density of population and more casualties in case of a crash. Given your assertion, I presume you would also want airlines to fly over Easter Ukraine again to save a lot of fuel. Doesn't matter if there could be casualties, does it ?

[White Light]

(trying to getting used how Luchtzak works)

Or could it just be that you happen to be living under one of those new departure routes in Brussels city??

Actually, with the so-called Wathelet Plan adopted under the Leterme governments when Wathelet was in charge of "Budget", I got a lot less aircraft flying over my house or area. However, I fully understand, as I wrote in an earlier posts, that people who have chosen to live in communes or areas exempt from aircraft movements in the past, now bitterly complain about the dispersion plan and the noise they never had before.

I have never complained because aircraft take off over my part of town (and sometimes also come over to land). The vast majority of people in my street have never complained. Most say it is acceptable and the planes have to take off and land.

As you can see, there are still some sensible people around with a good share of common sense.

[sean1982]

why is taking the shortest route after take off ridiculous? It saves a lot of fuel to start with

Because it may mean flying over areas with a high density of population and more casualties in case of a crash. Given your assertion, I presume you would also want airlines to fly over Easter Ukraine again to save a lot of fuel. Doesn't matter if there could be casualties, does it ?

Are you serious? Have you really thought all the time that that right turn after departure on 25R is because in case of a crash more lives are saved? Im sure the people in Vilvoorde en Grimbergen would be happy to here that their lives are considered less important in a crash, just because they live in a little bit less dense populated area than Brussels. Are you seriously comparing flying over a warzone just as risky as a normal take off, which happens 50.000 times a day safely in the world?

[regi]

Everybody who books a ticket living in a postal code outside Brussels receives a discount.
So, inhabitants from Flanders ( and maybe Walloon as well, I don't know their legislation and noise level ) will pay less than the inhabitants from the region that allowed this stringent legislation to be implemented.

Thus, the Brusselaars will not only suffer the noise, but also pay more to fly !
A good joke, Regi !

and who should suffer from the noise in your opinion?

[regi]

why is taking the shortest route after take off ridiculous? It saves a lot of fuel to start with

Because it may mean flying over areas with a high density of population and more casualties in case of a crash. Given your assertion, I presume you would also want airlines to fly over Easter Ukraine again to save a lot of fuel. Doesn't matter if there could be casualties, does it ?

what time of the day?

[tolipanebas]

Imho, the only REAL (non political) way out is for the federal governement to ask ICAO to appoint and send to Brussels a group of independent (non European) experts to recommend when and how take offs and landings should take place from/to BRU and that all political parties, regions, governments and citizens accept that these recommendations become binding.

FWIW,
you really don't need independent experts from ICAO come over and study the 'problem' of BRU, as the work has long been done by ICAO: BRU really isn't such a special case as politicians make the inhabitants of Brussels believe.

ICAO has a generic standard departure procedure published for many decades already and recommends this to be used whenever there is no obstacle related reason to deviate from it, which definitely isn't the case in BRU.

On top of that, ICAO also recommends to operate facing into the wind as much as possible, so combining these 2 ICAO recommendations brings you to a situation where RWY25R will be used most of the time with the planes departing straight out over the city.

[lumumba]

I think we have to make choses and yes an airport is important but a smaller one.
With no night flights, we can bring those flights to other airports Ex: maybe Oostende or Liege,Cologne...
Also a good idea will be to close the airport for take off from 23:00 to 07:00.

[RoMax]

I think we have to make choses and yes an airport is important but a smaller one.
With no night flights, we can bring those flights to other airports Ex: maybe Oostende or Liege,Cologne...
Also a good idea will be to close the airport for take off from 23:00 to 07:00.

A good idea? That's a disaster for e.g. charter operations and (LCC) hub operations (with early morning departures and late evening arrivals back at the hub to optimise aircraft utilisation).
Besides, cargo needs a certain amount of night flights, moving that all to the regional airports is nonsense. BRU is already in a difficult situation, squeezed between Europe's major hubs, banning flights between 23:00 and 07:00 is only good when you try to help our surrounding airports and that's nonesense (even when its about Belgium's regional airports), Brussels needs a strong hub airport, not some an airfield with an occasional day-time flight (to exagerate a bit).

I really do not understand many of the complaints (of people that knew about the noise before moving to that particular house, not talking about the shifting of noise and people complaining overthere). The airport is processing roughly the same amount of passengers as in the year 2000, but with much less flight movements, with less noisy aircraft and much less night flights (also with less noisy aircraft).

[White Light]

Also a good idea will be to close the airport for take off from 23:00 to 07:00.A good idea? That's a disaster for e.g. charter operations and (LCC) hub operations (with early morning departures and late evening arrivals back at the hub to optimise aircraft utilisation).

BRU is already in a difficult situation, squeezed between Europe's major hubs, banning flights between 23:00 and 07:00 is only good when you try to help our surrounding airports

Tell us how our surrounding airports, AMS/CDG (unrestricted operations only between 6am and 11pm) and FRA (general ban on flights between 11pm and 5am) and their main airlines cope ? If they can, why cannot BRU ?

(already posted, but a useful reminder I think)

http://www.zurich-airport.com/the-compa ... flight-ban

[lumumba]

I think we have to make choses and yes an airport is important but a smaller one.
With no night flights, we can bring those flights to other airports Ex: maybe Oostende or Liege,Cologne...
Also a good idea will be to close the airport for take off from 23:00 to 07:00.

A good idea? That's a disaster for e.g. charter operations and (LCC) hub operations (with early morning departures and late evening arrivals back at the hub to optimise aircraft utilisation).
Besides, cargo needs a certain amount of night flights, moving that all to the regional airports is nonsense. BRU is already in a difficult situation, squeezed between Europe's major hubs, banning flights between 23:00 and 07:00 is only good when you try to help our surrounding airports and that's nonesense (even when its about Belgium's regional airports), Brussels needs a strong hub airport, not some an airfield with an occasional day-time flight (to exagerate a bit).

I really do not understand many of the complaints (of people that knew about the noise before moving to that particular house, not talking about the shifting of noise and people complaining overthere). The airport is processing roughly the same amount of passengers as in the year 2000, but with much less flight movements, with less noisy aircraft and much less night flights (also with less noisy aircraft).

When I bough my house they where no planes!?!?!

[Lysexpat]

When I bough my house they where no planes!?!?!

25 years ago noisy DC-10s and 747-100s, often at low altitude due to max TOW, were overflying your house at midnight almost every day!

[RoMax]

Tell us how our surrounding airports, AMS/CDG (unrestricted operations only between 6am and 11pm) and FRA (general ban on flights between 11pm and 5am) and their main airlines cope ? If they can, why cannot BRU ?

11pm could be managed (altough BRU already has a restriction on the amount of flights between 23:00 or 23:30 and 24:00), but that hour in the morning (or two hours in case of FRA) makes a hell of a difference for many operators such as JAF. Besides, BRU already has (just like CDG/AMS) highly restricted operations during the night until 6am. Btw, do you remember when Ryanair was finishing its shedules for BRU? They also had trouble in securing some late arrivals in BRU. It's not like BRU is operating 24/7 without any restriction...

And why do they cope with their possibly slightly stricter restrictions (especially FRA with a ban on night flights). Well maybe because you can't compare them with BRU. These are 3 of the main 4 hubs in Europe, they have a very strong position. They DO suffer from those restrictions and they hate it every moment of their operation, but they have to deal with it. Lufthansa Cargo and other cargo operators suffered hard from the night ban, but FRA is still a leading cargo airport in Europe and with less and less suitable and attractive alternatives (yes, even in Germany) carriers adapted. But they already have a strong cargo carrier based overthere with no real alternatives (it doesn't make sense for LH to move its complete full freighter operations to another airport, as belly cargo at FRA makes up for a very large portion of their complete business). Try it with BRU and you'll see the latest full freighter carriers moving to other hubs.

Regarding leisure/LCC traffic (which often benefits from 'night' slots, very early departures, late arrivals), at CDG and FRA the share of that traffic cannot be compared with BRU (where that share of the total traffic is much higher). Even compared to AMS. And at AMS, KL Group has a strong slot position, they can cope with it (Transavia, their cargo operations, etc. want more night slots, but they do alright). Arke on the other hand is screaming for more of these slots, it's one of the factors restricting their expansion (more day-only operations result in higher costs and make certain operations not worth it).

BRU is not in a position to force airlines to adapt to such a situation which is less attractive and more costly for their operations.

[Established02]

When I bough my house they where no planes!?!?!

25 years ago noisy DC-10s and 747-100s, often at low altitude due to max TOW, were overflying your house at midnight almost every day!

Oh man, I really loved those 23h59 departures to FIH and JNB! Everything was completely quiet and the sound of those heavies just dominated the whole sky over Brussels. People did not make an issue out of it. For me it was just fantastic!

2 kms further from where I lived there was a railroad (to Namur or Charleroi?), which was mostly used by freight trains. When those trains passed in the distance our house was quietly shaking for a full minute, also at night.

The 747s did go straight over Brussels (Chabert route?), but the DC10s from SN and QC (Air Zaire) immediately turned left over Evere, Etterbeek, Oudergem... Occassionaly the SN 747s would also make such a quick left turn.

I have this visual memory of a Flying Tigers 747 (departing from 25R) making a very low turn over the Delta MIVB/STIB depot in Oudergem, slowly climbing up his way to FRA.

[White Light]

BRU already has a restriction on the amount of flights between 23:00 or 23:30 and 24:00

I presume you mean for take offs, because, certains nights, depending on the wind direction, I have aircraft landing nonstop between 11pm and 1am, by nonstop I mean an interval of at most two minutes between planes landing.

BRU is not in a position to force airlines to adapt to such a situation which is less attractive and more costly for their operations.

BRU is not in a position to become AMS, CDG or FRA. Full stop.

[On top of that, ICAO also recommends to operate facing into the wind as much as possible, so combining these 2 ICAO recommendations brings you to a situation where RWY25R will be used most of the time with the planes departing straight out over the city.

So, let them take off straight over the city. It will become very quiet in my part of town (although I never complained)

[lumumba]

When I bough my house they where no planes!?!?!

25 years ago noisy DC-10s and 747-100s, often at low altitude due to max TOW, were overflying your house at midnight almost every day!

I'm not so old but since I live here there where no planes.
And I said no TAKE OFF between 23:00 and 07:00.
Sure Brussels will lose some clients but that's a choice like Strasbourg did they refused DHL.
Here the airport is to close to the city to make it a big inernational hub.

[RoMax]

.
And I said no TAKE OFF between 23:00 and 07:00.

Exactly, TAKE OFF between 06am and 07am is one major factor for several airlines. Mainly airlines like JAF, HQ and LCC's with a base at BRU, but also for hub carriers like SN which try to send aircraft out early enough to get them back on time for the transfer waves and airlines with overnight stops that also want flights flying out early enough. All of that is often before 07am and that does make a hell of a difference if all these flights have to shift an hour. That's an hour you lose...time is money.

Here the airport is to close to the city to make it a big inernational hub.

There are bigger international hubs closer to to a city or its also densely populated suburbs than what's the case in BRU. Yes BRU is close to the city, but people still don't seem to understand that BRU is one of the most important lifelines of business and tourism in and around Brussels/Belgium. And if you have the same amount of passengers with 10% less flights (and even a much bigger reduction in night flights) compared to 2000 (when there were also much more noisy aircraft), I do believe BRU has quite some margin... Or maybe people are getting less and less tolerant? Probably just nonesense :silent:

[Established02]

Or maybe people are getting less and less tolerant? Probably just nonesense :silent:

Nowadays the skies are dominated by 320s and 738s. Yes, these modern planes still make noise, but not anywhere close to the ridiculous levels of screaming noise that were produced by the 737-200s and DC9s from the past, when this noise was apparently not much of an issue.

[Squelsh]

What is all this melodrama about curfews lately? Why should flights only be allowed after 7AM? And then a few lines further one reads at FRA it's 5 AM.

Why this compulsive behaviour every so-so years to start fidgeting and thumb down Brussels airport, in favor of, of course, the local ones, yeah, all airlines can go to Ostend or Charleroi or Liege..

Why, because a handful of people with loud voices, too much time & money on their hands and powerful friends want to live near the city, but don't want to accept certain things the way they are? ie a very vocal minority. No, then they start pushing their will so everything/everyone involved has to move/change because they want to.

damn tiring attention whores, pardon my french

[RoMax]

But please understand that by restricting BRU, traffic is not simply moving to OST, ANR, LGG, CRL. Besides its perfectly possible to have a strong hub operation and seperate coordinated regional airports. You don't have to restrict the one, to let the others succeed (or I'll better use the word "grow").

[speedbird1]

By any chance does anyone have any technical information about which SIDS are being closed / re-opened. Also a time scale for these actions to be completed? I see the next AIRAC cycle (1409) is 21st August.

Rgds,
Speedy