While the CEO of Airbus Guillaume Faury announced Wednesday, September 22 a real resumption of short and medium-haul flights, which concern Toulouse-Blagnac airport. This effect is felt above the heads of Toulouse residents exposed to a new passage of planes. A subject still so thorny for several years.

At Toulouse-Blagnac airport, the Director of Civil Aviation Safety Sud Nicolas Dubois believes that 60% of air traffic resumed, far from the figures for 2019.

A plan against nuisances

With the local authorities and the DGAC (Directorate General of Civil Aviation), several measures are in the pipeline to respond to complaints from residents, who were no longer used to hearing planes with the pandemic.

“It is indeed a question of having optimized trajectories, of having climb profiles which reduce noise pollution on the ground and it will also be a question of having systems for exchanging information between airport operators, elected officials and local residents, so that difficulties can be anticipated, detected and resolved. An environmental noise prevention plan should be developed by the end of the year. It is a tool which makes it possible to implement a certain number of measures to mitigate airport noise pollution. “

Associations on the bridge

Is it a post-covid effect? What is certain is that air traffic has resumed, day and night. Chantal Beer-Ask, the president of the CCNAAT (collective against air pollution in the Toulouse area), an association made up of residents of Toulouse-Blagnac airport.

“The World Health Organization says we have the right to eight hours of sleep. So let’s start stopping night flights for at least six and a half hours, like in Orly. People can sleep between 11:30 p.m. and 6 am Just that, we would have had and we would have had half the problems less. There are 100,000 people who are affected by aircraft noise in Toulouse and there are 100,000 people working in aeronautics. We must be able to find compromises to reconcile the health of local residents. “