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Interviews suggested that continuous decent approaches are commonly used at larger airports. A continuous descent approach is a method by which an aircraft approaches the runway prior to landing. It is designed to reduce fuel consumption and noise compared to other conventional descents.

Various other beneficial practices of operational restrictions in the EU Member States include:

• London Heathrow having an arrivals and departures code of practice;
• Noise Abatement Departure Procedures (NADP1 or NADP2) used at most large airports);
• In the UK, aviation stakeholders developed an industry code of practice for noise from arriving and departing aircraft which includes options to reduce noise by reducing use of landing flaps, delayed landing configurations, increased minimum altitudes and continuous descent approaches;
• Performance based navigation is commonly used with the effect of concentrating flight tracks along specified pathways;
• Noise preferential routes are commonly used. Practices such as “early turns” were not usually found;
• Low-power low-drag arrivals found commonly at larger airports such as London Heathrow and Madrid Barajas;
• Steeper approaches trialled at London Heathrow and Frankfurt airports;
• Frankfurt Airport uses a “swing over” visual approach to shift to a parallel runway up to four nautical miles from touchdown to avoid directly overflying specific areas.

Relevant information

ANIMA Operational procedures scientific publications

Critical review of Balanced Approach Implementation across EU Member States

Noise management interventions