Trondheim, Norway – MIME, a consortium part-funded by the European Commission, today announced the first seminar of the MIME project. The seminar, entitled “Freeing up environmental capacity at airports within a managed noise-annoyance framework”, will be held at the Commission’s Jacques Delors Building, 99-101 rue Belliard, Brussels on 1st July 2009.

Current airport noise management schemes use measures such as noise budgets, aircraft categorisation and noise routes, often coupled with expensive noise charges or penalties for airlines. However, experience from other industries shows that, under certain conditions, market-based mechanisms using transferable permits could provide improved control over environmental impact while allowing efficient business operations. MIME is a new and innovative research project to study whether such mechanisms could apply to air transport. It is funded by the European Commission’s 6th RTD Framework Programme and is overseen by an Advisory Board to ensure that stakeholder views are taken into account.

SINTEF’s Truls Gjestland, MIME’s scientific co-ordinator says: “A noise cap-and-trade scheme might allow more effective, airline-specific solutions to be devised. In such a system, if an airline possessed permits for a certain amount of noise - more specifically “noise annoyance” - it could obtain the increased capacity it required, remaining within these limits, by using a mixture of tactics.” These tactics could include varying fleet composition; following improved operational procedures and optimised schedules, and making better use of routes. Or an airline could buy surplus permits from another that had significantly reduced its own noise. This could offer greater flexibility for airlines to propose the most sustainable local balance for their business, while meeting the needs of surrounding communities.

“Allowing noise permits to be traded within locally agreed noise limits could give airlines a positive financial incentive for good noise performance. MIME will examine all the possibilities to see if such a scheme were feasible and whether it would work to the best interests of all concerned”, adds Gjestland.

The MIME project, which runs until December 2010, will study:

• Innovative methods of quantifying aircraft noise annoyance;
• Whether noise annoyance could be translated into a trading system;
How airlines could use such a system to their best business advantage;
• The requirements for tools to calculate airline noise permit use;
How airports could decide whether such a scheme would help their relationship with local residents.