A night-time ban on flights from Europe's busiest airport Heathrow could produce up to £860 million in financial savings, new research suggests.
Economic costs caused by the ban could be outweighed by savings from reduced health costs of sleep disturbance and stress caused by the noise pollution of night flights.
The UK authorities currently restrict the number of night flights between 11.30 pm and 6.00 am at Heathrow to 5,800 a year or around 16 per night.
Later this year, the Government is expected to consult on a new night flight schedule at London's Heathrow, Stansted and Gatwick airports.
However, the CE Delft social cost benefit analysis, commissioned by HACAN, found that the economic benefits of having less night noise and consequentially less sleep disturbance, in addition to other positive side effects, would outweigh the costs of decreased earnings for the aviation sector and a possible decline in tourism revenue.
The study estimated the impact to society by identifying three possible combinations of actions by airlines and passengers:
1: All night flights are rescheduled to the day and passengers opt for a daytime flight
2: All night flights are rescheduled to the day with 65 per cent of passengers (those who terminate at Heathrow) accepting another arrival time, whilst the remaining 35 per cent of passengers (who are transfer passengers) no longer stop there.
3: All night flights are cancelled and are not rescheduled
The research assessed the economic costs and benefits of the three possible scenarios from 2013 to 2023. It estimated that the first alternative - where flights were rescheduled and passengers continued to fly but at different times – would produce a total saving of £572 million (€673 million).
This is mainly the result of the high value placed on noise reduction, which had an estimated benefit of £821.7 million (€966 million).
Changes in frequency of flights and travel times i.e. people not being able to fly on their desired time caused a loss of £250.1 million (€294 million).
For the second alternative, where only terminating passengers continue to fly, the effects add up to a saving of £860 million (€1 billion). Again this was mainly from the benefits of noise reduction (worth £821.7 million (€966 million)).
Costs from changes in frequency and times of flights were not as large as these are greatest for transferring passengers and in this scenario they no longer fly. However, there was a greater cost to airline profits.
In the third scenario it is estimated there would be a very large loss in tourism (worth £831.7 million (€978 million)) and a loss in airline profits (£66.8 million (€78.6 million), which counteracts the £821.7 million gain from noise reduction. The net result is an estimated loss of £35.2 million (€41.4 million). However, this scenario is very unlikely.
Several economic costs were not included as they were difficult to value, such as non-aviation revenues from shops and car hire, effects on employment and effects on profits from air passenger duty. If they were included the outcome could have been less positive.
In addition, the gains are largely from noise reduction benefits and the researchers stress that the value of noise reduction varies with the valuation method. The study used a valuation based partly on annoyance, but if it was based on blood pressure then the benefits would be considerably less, for example, the benefits of the second situation would drop from £856 million to £40.1 million.
The researchers recommend studying the benefits of noise reductions in more detail.
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