In Belgium, the high health authority recommends banning night flights at Brussels-Zaventem airport

The Superior Health Council highlights the health risks posed by airborne noise.

The Belgian health authority has advocated“complete ban” plane flights from 23 to 7 hours at Brussels-Zaventem airport, the busiest in the country. The objective is to protect the health of some 160,000 local residents exposed to airborne noise above 45 decibels, she underlined on Tuesday May 7, while the World Health Organization has “highly recommended” to reduce these noises below 40 decibels, due to the harmful effects on health.

In addition to sleep disorders, this noise pollution can cause hypertension, an increased risk of depression or cognitive disorders in children, continues the Superior Health Council (CSS) in its opinion. “There is no future for night-time activities at an airport in this densely populated region”commented the Belgian Minister of Health, Frank Vandenbroucke. “I am therefore in favor of a gradual, realistic but systematic reduction in night flights, by first stopping the flights of the noisiest aircraft.”

In its recommendation, the CSS uses 2019 activity as a reference (before the Covid-19 pandemic) and recalls that “234,461 aircraft movements” were recorded that year in Zaventem, including around 27,000, or more than 11%, between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m.

The operator defends the importance of night traffic

Cited in particular is a study carried out among German primary school children, which established a link between exposure to aircraft noise (near Frankfurt airport) and delays in learning to read. In 2011, a German administrative court banned flights at Frankfurt airport between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m., a measure still in force with exceptions in the event of a weather emergency or for security reasons.

Brussels-Zaventem airport has seen an average of between 20 and 25 million passengers pass through per year for a decade if we except 2020 and 2021, years when attendance fell due to Covid. Brussels Airport, the airport operator, for its part, defended the importance of night traffic, particularly for its freight activity, and “the transport of certain critical goods, such as pharmaceutical products”. Still according to this source, freight accounts for half of the night flights recorded today in Zaventem and “represents 7,000 jobs”.