Living close to an airport comes with many benefits – but one major drawback is the amount of noise pollution that results from planes taking off and landing.
But now local residents can do something about it: Manchester Airport has today launched a new online tool that allows members of the public to see its flight and noise data – and submit a complaint about a noisy plane. Data on a particular plane will be available 24 hours after the flight.
Using radar data received from National Air Traffic Services and noise data collected at noise monitoring terminals stationed around the airport, WebTrak displays a map of the region with flight details and the levels of noise generated by aircraft taking off and landing at the airport.
The technology has been introduced primarily for the benefit of local people and shows flight activity within 30 miles of the airport.
Wendy Sinfield, the airport’s community relations manager, said: “We recognise that aircraft landing and taking off at the airport can affect our neighbours.
“By making flight and noise information available on the internet, people can go online and use the system to find details of a particular flight (airline, aircraft type and destination), locate their property on a map and calculate the height that the aircraft was flying above and the distance from their property and if they have a comment or concern about a particular flight they can report it to us using the same system.”
Tim Walmsley, environment manager at the airport, added: “In our Noise Action Plan we promised to introduce a tool to allow flight paths and noise levels around the airport to be looked at over the internet. Three months of historical flight data can be investigated through the system and members of the public can see new data 24 hours after the activity.”
