Airlines to pay 1,000 EUR after each night flight over Budapest

The louder the plane, the higher the fine to reduce night air traffic over the Hungarian capital.

According to hvg, from this Tuesday on, airlines can pay even 1,000 EUR fines if they fly over Budapest during the night. Authorities would like to encourage companies with such measures to reduce the number of their flights between midnight and 5 am, said the Ministry for Innovation and Technology.

The regulation favours less noisy planes which have to pay lower fines, but after the more outdated and therefore louder ones, airlines are going to be fined for as much as 1,000 EUR. Owners of the

least noisy planes have to pay only 10 pc of the highest fine.

The airport operator of Budapest Airport is going to spend the money coming in from the fines on the newly-launched window-replacement program. This program helps people who live in the neighbourhood of Liszt Ferenc Airport, as they are affected by the noise of air traffic the most.

The regulations related to noise pollution were made in 1997 and have not been modified since then. Based on that, planes could be enabled to land or take off in a back-wind that is below 5 knots. The new regulation increased this limit to 10 knots.

Thanks to the modification and based on previous calculations,

90 pc of the flights may come from the sparsely-populated South-East direction

to Budapest. Meanwhile, in the densely populated North-Western areas of Budapest, air traffic at night might be significantly reduced.

As a result, in the future, planes can only use flight routes over Budapest

in emergencies and exceptional cases.

As we reported before, the Budapest municipal council wanted to ban all air traffic at Budapest’s Liszt Ferenc International Airport between midnight and 5 am to curb noise pollution. Talks started immediately between the city council, HungaroControl, and the airport operator of Budapest Airport to reduce noise pollution in areas near the airport.

Interestingly, according to a long-term proposal by the council, plans are to move cargo and military traffic to another airport farther away from Budapest, which would not apply to passenger services.

And if you are interested in how authorities plan to connect the airport with the downtown of the Hungarian capital by train, HERE you can find the details.

Source: hvg.hu