Night flights: is there a need for a curfew at Toulouse-Blagnac airport?
In the Metropolis, the elected ecologists proposed a study with a view to a curfew from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. at Toulouse-Blagnac airport with exemptions for the aeronautical industry.
Should we limit night flights and impose a curfew at Toulouse-Blagnac airport? The question was raised last year during the municipal elections in Toulouse by the Archipel list. And she had waited for a controversy over distrust of aeronautics. The subject returned Thursday, at the Metropolitan Council, during a wish from the environmental and Alternative groups for a Citizen Metropolis.
The noise of planes around an urban airport, especially at night, is the subject of constant complaints from residents. For Hélène Cabanes (EELV), the update of the Environmental Noise Prevention Plan is an opportunity to “put the spotlight back on because the situation is bad”.
The elected environmentalist cites the complaints of local residents “from less than a hundred per year in 2015 to several thousand from 2017”. But also “the noise maps published in 2019 (which) show a very strong increase (+ 73%) in the populations affected by night flights”. Hélène Cabanes asks for “a study on the possibility of implementing a curfew” that she would see from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m., with flight restrictions between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. and from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. A curfew that would not apply to medical emergency flights and with exemptions for the flights of manufacturers.
For Joseph Carles, spokesperson for the Indépendants and mayor of Blagnac, the curfew would be a bad signal which “would penalize an industrial airport. Curfews would become the rule and we need derogatory regimes. The elected representative recommends instead to continue “the work in progress on the reduction of night flights”.
An orientation not up to par, said the Greens who preferred to withdraw their wish.