The City of Palma (Balearic islands) has asked AENA, the public company that manages the majority of Spanish airports, which allow the closure of the airport of son Sant Joan during the night to reduce the noise, pollution and to ensure the rights of the inhabitants of the affected area. The Consistory wants to suspend year-round operations between eleven at night and six in the morning and to allow exclusively the flow of air traffic for humanitarian flights and emergency medical. The Palma airport receives flights 24 hours a day, and during the past year saw a volume increase of 27.9 million passengers, a figure just below that is reached by the Madrid-Barajas Adolfo Suárez and El Prat in Barcelona.
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On the allegations in the Action Plan of the map of the noises from the airport of Palma has been subject to public exhibition, the City argues that it receives “with regularity in the summer season” complaints about the noise caused by night flights. “The mediterranean climate that characterizes the city and the warmth of the summer nights promotes the need to sleep with the windows open, a fact that causes the night traffic to the airport can be particularly annoying to the rest of the neighbors” describes in the text.
The city Council recognizes that the measure is not contemplated in the Plan of Action of AENA, but calls for his inclusion to ensure “the rights to health, private life and property of those affected”. The proposal passes by the closure of the premises between eleven at night and six in the morning, allowing only movements of flights for humanitarian or health emergency. “It is a measure which since long ago has been implemented in some of the Oslobet most important airports such as Heathrow in London, Charles de Gaulle in Paris or Schipol in Amsterdam,” says the city’s plan.
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What is certain is that the airport of son Sant Joan is open 24 hours a day and receives flights virtually at all hours, while those who operate in the central hours of the early morning are loading and transportation of goods. However, the time between eleven at night and one in the morning and brings together a large volume of air traffic in the summer months, in full high season. Some days you have registered peaks of three aircraft every five minutes.
According to the map data of noise interactive AENA, the 28th of July, in full tourist season, the airport of Palma recorded 108 transactions between eleven at night and two in the morning. Figures that are repeated on many days of the months of summer, as the past August 18, when the airport saw 70 transactions in that same time slot; or the 5 of August, with a hundred flights in that period of three hours. In winter, the numbers are reduced significantly, with just seven transactions last night that correspond to cargo flights.
Currently, about 1,400 homes in the neighborhoods of Coll d’en Rabassa, Can Pastilla and Sant Jordi, which surround the aerodrome, have the right to be soundproofed by the trace acoustic, although the neighborhood associations asked at the end of last year the figure will rise to 3,000. Precisely last summer, the government team of the city Council sent a letter to the then minister of public works, Íñigo of the Serna, and the president of AENA, José Manuel Vargas, claiming that the airport should cease to be a “24 hours” and be closed to reduce pollution, the environmental impact and allow the rest of the neighbors.
