The Hindu Business Line : ‘Review night curfew at international airports’

India has written to the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) seeking a review of the night curfew that is imposed by airports around the globe, including the US and several countries in Europe.

India has argued that the current system of night curfew at airports was “inequitable” and placed difficulties on some countries.

“The closure of airports means that aircraft emissions gets concentrated into a 12-hour time cycle rather than being distributed throughout the day. The current system also places a severe strain on airlines of countries that are affected by the night curfew as they have to make limited use of expensive assets,” officials said.

Global support

India is being supported by a number of other countries in its effort to get airports to change their practice. The issue would be taken up at the ICAO General Assembly meeting scheduled to be held from September 18.

Interestingly, India had presented a similar proposal in 2003 where it had been argued that the practice of night curfew leads to restrictive air traffic handling capacity situations.

“Such restrictions, with increasing traffic volumes, results in air traffic congestion and imbalances in the utilisation of aviation infrastructure,” India had then argued.

Sources pointed out that the need to introduce night operation curfew started due to noise pollution caused by the aircraft engines.

“Aircraft entering service today is typically 20db quieter than an aircraft in operation about three decades ago. This means that they are about 75 per cent less noisy than earlier aircraft. This in effect means that there is no real justification for imposing night curfew,” officials added.

The imposition of night curfew recently saw Air India delay a London-bound flight by more than 15 hours.

While the aircraft snag was rectified within a few hours, the flight could not depart from Delhi as it would have reached London after night curfew would have started.