Noise - investment in new technology
Operating newer, quieter, aircraft is an important part of reducing our noise impacts. By investing £7 billion in more efficient aircraft we have managed to halve our noise impact since 1999.
A Boeing 787 currently on order to join the British Airways fleet.
Further improvements
We will continue to make further improvements through:
New aircraft
In September 2007, we announced the replacement of some of our Boeing 767-300 and 747-400's with the Airbus 380 and Boeing 787. These new aircraft will deliver significant environmental improvements including improved noise ratings - for instance on the noise rating system at Heathrow, the A380 and the B787 are classed as QC 0.5 on arrival compared to QC2 for the B747-4. That means they are rated as producing 25% of a 747-400's noise level.
Find out more about our new aircraft
New technology equipment
We are trialling new technology equipment fitted to our existing aircraft that should allow further noise reductions to be made.
We are currently working through safety, legal and regulatory constraints that have to be demonstrated before the technology can be used.
Precision Area Navigation (P-RNAV), and Required Navigation Performance (RNP) are two pieces of equipment fitted to newer aircraft in the BA fleet that if allowed could be used to facilitate new novel low noise procedures whilst maintaining safety margins required for departing and arriving aircraft without affecting capacity.