The case in favour of an evening curfew from 23h00

1. Introduction

This document concerns the proposal for a night curfew from 23h00. With regard to this, the document demonstrates that the various reasons invoked by the AIG to refuse any such curfew are not valid in the light of the current traffic data.

In order to simplify the examination, as well as to be completely up to date, the examination may use data collected by the ARAG GAME (Geneva Aircraft Movements Enquiry) system for the summer timetable period for 2009 (29 March 2009 to 24 October 2009), for the whole of 2009 and for the months of March 2009 and March 2010.

In the CRINEN request, relative to retaining a grace period after 23h00, it does not seem to have been clearly specified whether this grace period should be the entire hour from 23h00 to 24h00 or the half hour only from 23h00 to 23h30. Given that this choice makes a considerable difference to the effect of such a curfew, the presentation of data may be commented on according to the three possibilities: no grace period, a grace period of 30 minutes and a grace period of one hour.

The data relevant to this document is held on the ARAG Web site and may be accessed via the URL

www.aragge.ch/CRINEN

This data includes spreadsheet information for all fixed-wing jet or turboprop aircraft movements during 2009 and the winter of 2010, plus copies of the official timetable information for these time periods

2. Executive summary

In the opinion of ARAG, this is the most important curfew requirement. The current situation, in which airline companies can operate until 00h30 with little or no meaningful penalty of any sort, is unfair to people living around the airport. People should have the right to a full night of sleep without having to have their residences soundproofed and to close bedroom windows every night.

The practical implication of an earlier curfew, at 23h00 instead of 24h00, whilst retaining a grace period of either 30 minutes or 60 minutes, is examined relative to the main categories of late arrivals or departures. These arrivals may be categorised into regularly-scheduled commercial passenger flights of classical or low-cost airlines, all-cargo flights and the remaining miscellaneous arrivals and departures.

In considering these implications, the examination takes note of the various arguments advanced in the EMPA, SH&E and AIG observations in order to resist any change to the current midnight curfew. It is clearly demonstrated that, even for those arguments which might in the past have had some validity, none are now sufficiently important to make the supposedly disastrous economic consequences at all likely.

With respect to aircraft landings, a principle argument put forward in the SH&E report was that

If the last flights from connecting hubs could not reach Geneva before the extended curfew hours, those flights would be cancelled

All returning flights of hub airlines, with the exception of the late Swiss flight from Zurich and a summer-only return of TAP from Porto (hardly an important hub!), are scheduled well before 23h00 and are very punctual. It is also the case that there is an earlier Swiss flight from Zurich which actually corresponds to the normal schedule for final hub flights. This flight leaves Zurich at 20h35, which is earlier than the flights from Amsterdam, Brussels, Lisbon, London, Madrid, Paris and Vienna: only the flights from Frankfurt and Munich leave later. Thus, this last Swiss flight is in reality a special internal flight for Swiss business persons which should receive special treatment.

The return, on their last rotation, of the various easyJet Switzerland aircraft, shows a highly regrettable tendency to lateness. Although they are all scheduled to arrive well in advance of the last incoming Swiss flight from Zurich, in reality it is very often true that at least one easyJet aircraft lands later than the Swiss flight. In March 2010 the records show this happening on 22 of the 31 nights (despite several easyJet returns which, whilst scheduled, did not take place). Thus, easyJet Switzerland has in any case to improve the lamentable lateness record (to something akin to that of its parent company): a gradual move of the absolute limit (the end of the grace period) to earlier in the evening would be a good incentive.

A curfew at 23h00 will cause virtually no problems with regularly scheduled departures, since almost all are normally before 22h00. The only difficult cases might be the usual flight of Air Mauritius if it continues to be scheduled after 22h00 in the winter period, plus a small number of late departures of business jets, for whom the operators would no doubt vociferously defend their right to allow a privileged clientele to schedule a departure until midnight. Neither of these cases can justify the retention of the curfew hour at midnight.

It is therefore evident that the ARAG proposal to have a curfew from 23h00, with a grace period initially of one hour, later descending to 30 minutes, plus a special dispensation for the final incoming internal Swiss flight from Zurich, is entirely feasible. It would contribute greatly to a longer period of quietness at night for the thousands of residents living around the airport.

3. The current data for late arrivals

In the EMPA report, Table 3-1 scenarios 1 and 2 give the data for movements of heavy aircraft in 2005. The difference between the number of movements in the two scenarios is presumably the number of movements which were scheduled after 23h00, probably including ones not listed in the timetables for the regular Geneva airlines, and which might be retained by reason of being special cases (state, medical, special derogations), but these should not be a large number

The report of SH&E includes as Exhibit 7.1 their forecasts for aircraft arrivals in 2015. It is not evident exactly how these forecasts were obtained. In particular, the forecast for the number of arrivals in the periods from 23h00 to 23h59 (1’897) and from 24h00 until 05h59 (180) is crucial, in that these two numbers are then used to predict a number of cancelled flights and the noise contours for the first night hour from 22h00 to 23h00. As the recent economic events have demonstrated, such predictions are always liable to be rendered obsolete by events which were not foreseen, and so any conclusions based upon these figures should not be considered as having any great validity. Instead, what should be done is to see how the current situation could adapt to the requirements of the proposed curfew.

With the exception of the late arrival of the last Swiss flight from Zurich, plus one slightly less late from Porto (only in the Summer period), which also has an impressive punctuality record, there are virtually no flights regularly scheduled to land after 23h00. There are, however, still a significant number of such late arrivals, in the great majority returning easyJet Switzerland flights which are well behind schedule on their final rotation of the day. Delay distribution curves and scatter plots of these delays show how far easyJet Switzerland lags well behind not only the classical airlines but also its parent company in the UK. There would seem not to be any inherent reason why they should not be able to improve this punctuality record to match easyJet UK, especially since the AIG has recently distributed graphs demonstrating that the Air Traffic Flow Management (ATFM) delays at Geneva airport and elsewhere are constantly being reduced down to a level where they should not normally affect aircraft movements significantly.

The detailed statistics presented in the following sections refer to the actual data for the 30 week summer timetable period of 2009. Whilst similar statistics could be presented for the 22 week winter periods of 2009 or 2010, these would be much less easy to interpret because of the frequent periods of bad weather in the 2008/2009/2010 winters. It would also be an extra complication to the analysis that the scheduling of aircraft may change dramatically to accommodate special requirements over the Christmas and New Year period.

3.1 Classical airlines scheduled late arrivals in Summer 2009

These are mainly final flights from hubs, which are almost all scheduled at or before 22h00. In consequence, there is no likelihood whatsoever that they would be cancelled in the case of a 23h00 curfew, contrary to the assertion in the SH&E report that this could happen.

With a grace period of one hour, just a minimal number of arrivals after midnight would have been affected. Of these, one was an emergency landing of a Lufthansa aircraft, two were unidentified Baboo landings on a Saturday night and eight were scheduled after 23h00.These last 8 would be rescheduled (unless the two landings of the last Swiss flight from Zurich were to be given special dispensation).

If the grace period is only 30 minutes then it is necessary to look also at the arrivals between 23h30 and 24h00. There are 51 such arrivals, of which 6 were scheduled before 22h00, 15 between 22h00 and 23h00, 27 between 23h00 and 23h30 (15 from Zürich, 7 from Porto), and 3 unknown (two Baboo, one Iberia). This indicates that if the Swiss flight from Zürich is considered as special and that from Porto (TP942, scheduled for 2315 in Summer, but not running in Winter, thus not really an important hub flight) is rescheduled for slightly earlier, then a curfew from 23h00 to 0500, including a grace period from 23h00 to 23h30, would present no serious problems for the classical airlines.

3.2 easyJet Switzerland late arrivals in Summer 2009

In analysing the recorded arrivals of easyJet aircraft, it is necessary to remember that on a significant number of days one or more scheduled easyJet arrivals may have been cancelled, sometimes the entire rotation (there and back).

There were 39 arrivals after midnight of easyJet Switzerland flights. Their actual landing time varied from one minute after midnight until just after 0030, whilst their scheduled arrival times were between 1930 and 2310. The worst days of the week were Saturday (9 arrivals) and Sunday (7 arrivals). On one day (13 June), there were three arrivals after midnight.

In the period from 23h30 to 24h00 there were 142 arrivals, of which 9 were scheduled for between 23h00 and 2310. The great majority of these (100) were scheduled for the period from 22h30 to 22h59. This lack of punctuality is not impressive.

The need is thus that easyJet learn how better to adhere to their published timetables!

3.3 All other late arrivals in Summer 2009 (most often business aviation)

Of the seven arrivals after midnight, six are clearly for medical reasons, the remaining one being a company operating small business jets.

Of the 35 arrivals between 23h30 and 24h00, all except two were small business jets. These cannot constitute a serious argument against a curfew with a 30 minute grace period.

4. The current data for late departures

The same doubts exist for the forecast for the number of departures in the periods from 23h00 to 23h59 and from 24h00 to 05h59 (Exhibit 7.2 of the SH&E report) as those already expressed for the corresponding values for arrivals.

4.1 Classical airlines late departures in Summer 2009

All discussions need to be qualified with the remark that in the summer of 2009 the airline schedules showed only one flight leaving after 22h00: a flight FHE244 to Reykjavik, operated by Fly Hello and scheduled every Saturday at 23h00 from 6 June onwards. There do appear to have been just 7 detected flights of this airline which could have been this flight, of which 6 actually departed before 23h00.

Of the remainder, the only cases of departures after 23h00 which were not isolated incidents (which will always happen, whatever the curfew specification) are some flights to North Africa (Atlas Blue, Royal Air Maroc and Swiss) and the flight of Air Mauritius (on average more than an hour late). It may be questioned whether the North Africa flights are important enough always to be given derogations. For the Air Mauritius flights a derogation would be quasi-automatic (too big to delay!).

It is, however, evident that of the 571 recorded departures, more than 500 would have been planned for before 22h00. This would seem entirely compatible with a curfew from 23h00 with a grace period of 30 minutes.

4.2 EasyJet late departure in Summer 2009s

An examination of departures after 23h00 reveals that two specific easyJet flights are particularly subject to departing late. The easyJet flight EZY2058 (call sign EZY58Z) to Luton was clearly the last flight of rotations managed by EasyJet UK and has most often been the last easyJet UK departure. More surprising, at first glance, is the flight EZS8477 to London Gatwick, since this flight should normally return to Geneva as EZS8478. The explanation is that when easyJet Switzerland has a shortage of aircraft, the company may use an incoming Gatwick flight, operated with an aircraft of easyJet UK, to help with daily Geneva rotations, before going back to Gatwick as a replacement for the Geneva-Gatwick flight. This may result in extra delay at the end of the day.

It is therefore the case that all late departures of easyJet flights are in reality aircraft of easyJet UK.

4.3 All other late departures in Summer 2009)

For the period after 23h30, and with the exception of flights which are obviously for affairs of state or for medical reasons, the only case of multiple departures of aircraft of a single company is that of 5 departures of NetJets aircraft. They would just have to convince their clients that late night takeoffs of private jets disturb the sleep of many people!

It is known that there have been some individually planned departures after 22h00, but the actual number is not available to ARAG: all attempts by ARAG to request from AIG any detailed information about the scheduled departure times has been fruitless. What is striking in the statistics is that although unscheduled departures, almost always private jet aircraft, represent only about 20% of all night departures after 22h00, for the second hour from 23h00 to 24h00 they represent almost 40% (49 out of a total of 131). This suggests that either they are being scheduled after 23h00 or the passengers are sometimes finding it difficult to get to Geneva airport before 23h00.

5. What would be the probable response of airlines to a curfew from 23h00

Realistically, it is difficult to envisage a night curfew stricter than one from 23h00 onwards, with a grace period of either 30 minutes or one hour.

The main company that would be affected is clearly EasyJet Switzerland, who would have either to develop flight and aircraft rotation schedules less subject to delays (which would doubtless please their customers) or to find a good way of getting assistance from aircraft based elsewhere, probably mostly at Gatwick. There is no obvious reason why they should not be able to achieve this, although perhaps not before the schedules of 2010/2011 or 2011.

The classical airlines, which have a much better adherence to schedules, would have very few problems to deal with, because even now they only rarely have flights scheduled after 23h30. The exception is the last flight back from Zürich, normally arriving at around 2315. This is not a standard hub flight: such flights normally leave the hubs in the early evening, as does the previous Swiss flight from Zurich. Rather, it is a flight to allow Swiss people to return late from a day in Zurich.

For the case of business aviation, it might be the case that some clients wish to fly late, but one would imagine that with a little explanation and goodwill, they would accept to avoid particularly late arrivals or departures.

6. Conclusion

The arguments and statistics for the current situation indicate that there is no genuinely valid reason why a curfew from 23h00, together with a grace period which would start at 60 minutes, later reduced to 30 minutes, should not be adopted.

7. References

Evaluation de limitations supplémentaires des vols nocturnes sur l’Aéroport de Genève, Calculs et analyses du bruit, EMPA Nr. 445'300, 8 juin 2007

Evaluation of Additional Night Operating Restrictions at Geneva International Airport.

Prepared for Aéroport International de Genève by SH&E, Inc., May 2007.

Observations pour Aéroport International de Genève, Me Olivier Jornot, 5 octobre 2007, OFAC reference 3561/3/31/31-06