«Even on the night between Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th June, many residents of Lonate Pozzolo were woken up by a flight taking off around 4 in the morning». He reports it Nadia Rosa, former mayor of Lonate and today an opposition councillor, who denounces the too frequent use of runway 17L, that is, night-time take-offs in a southerly direction from the runway that most exposes the town to noise (the image is from the archive).
Rosa signals six cases in two months of take-off in the middle of the nightwhich may seem few but are added to the take-offs in other bands. And the councilor also wrote to Sea, Arpa and Enac (as well as to the administration) and invites to «to deliver on noise reduction commitmentssuch as discouraging the use of noisier aircraft, particularly at night.”
Below is the full communication
Even on the night between Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th June, many residents of Lonate Pozzolo were awakened by a flight taking off around 4am. In particular, it was the 747-400 Cargolux that took off at 3.45am for New York from runway 17L (17 left, the one closest to the town of Lonate).
As is known, the noise abatement procedures currently in force provide for take-offs towards the south (i.e. towards Lonate Pozzolo) during the night period (11.30pm – 6.30am), using runway 17R for take-offs and 35L for landings. In practice, the runway furthest from the residences must be used for both take-offs and landings, in order to try to reduce the acoustic impact on the inhabitants. Unfortunately, the use of runway 17L for night take-offs towards the south is increasingly being observed, with the consequent impact on the inhabitants of Lonate, further aggravated by the type of aircraft involved, as happened tonight with the old-generation Boeing 747, much noisier than other aircraft.
Monitoring only the weekly Cargolux Malpensa – New York flight, excluding June 23 when it departed late during the day, in the last two months the flight departed from runway 17L six times (05/05, 19/05, 26/05, 9/06, 16/06 and 30/06) and from 17R only twice (12/05 and 02/06). Naturally, the runway in use is also used by all other aircraft during that night. Similar monitoring done some time ago on two other night flights (Cathay Pacific’s Malpensa–Hong Kong and DHL’s Malpensa-Leipzig) had resulted in an almost equal split of departures on the two runways, rather than the expected absolute prevalence of runway 17R.
In my five-year experience in the Airport Commission, the use of runway 17L has always been considered possible only on a residual basis and for specific reasons. Indeed, I remember that when some Local Authorities requested to “spread” night flights across both runways, those present at the table, from SEA to ARPA, had stated that it would not be possible precisely to contain the noise, also in view of compliance with the acoustic zoning. However, if then in the test of facts the use becomes habitual, everything said in the meetings is nullified and it is necessary to question what was shared at the time. With this communication we do not want to enter into a general discussion on the airport. There will be other places and other occasions to do so.
Similarly, the legitimacy of night flights, which unfortunately are not prohibited by national law, is not addressed.
It is clear that a generalized ban, with the closure of airports (all of them) at night, as happens in other countries, would be the ideal solution. And we do not want to discuss, here, the legislation relating to noise, which has the major limitation of reasoning on statistical data of noise, calculated on the average during the day and therefore of making “lose” the data of the annoyance much more impactful than the peak of night noise of a single extremely noisy aircraft.The request, however, both from a Lonatese whose sleep is disturbed, but also and above all from a municipal councilor of Lonate Pozzolo questioned on the subject by my fellow citizens, is to remain faithful to the commitments made for the reduction of noise, such as discouraging the use of the noisiest aircraft, especially at night. Above all, we ask to respect the take-off procedure from runway 17R at night. As annoying as it is, as long as it is legal for planes to take off at night on our territory, at least there would be less damage. Finally, I invite you to organize a public meeting in Lonate Pozzolo to have the opportunity for a direct comparison between the citizens, the airport manager and the bodies involved. If the Municipal Administration of Lonate Pozzolo does not take an active part in this proposal, our council group is certainly available to take action in this sense. Best regards.
(for the United and Free group) Nadia Rosa
