Proposal for a more open access to information

1. Introduction

The official information currently available to the general public comes via the AIG Web site in the section intended for people travelling on scheduled flights. This information is also available on the teletext service of Swiss television. Other more technical information is available on the corporate pages of the web site. Unlike some other airports, however, there is no official web site which will give any information on noise measurements, landing or takeoff trajectories or any details of unscheduled movements such as those of business aviation.

The AIG does have very much information available. There are many noise measurement stations all around the airport which permanently send noise measurements to the AIG’s MIABA system. The AIG also has a database for listing all aircraft movements and the possibility to produce radar plots showing actual aircraft movement trajectories.

Having on many occasions made requests for information on particular cases involving aircraft noise, ARAG has come to the conclusion that too many of these requests have been refused, or only partly answered, even for information which can hardly be considered to be highly confidential. This has been the primary reason for ARAG, together with the ATCR-AIG , to have implemented its own noise measurement stations and aircraft movement identification. Together with the services offered by the European Aircraft Noise Services (EANS), this combination permits anyone connected on the internet to find details of noise, trajectory and aircraft since April 2008.

It is clear that the data available to ARAG, and hence to internet users of its own Web site, are likely to be less complete than equivalent information available to the AIG. However, the ARAG information is available to everyone, whilst that of the AIG is essentially restricted to the airport management and OFAC. ARAG believes that the modern ideas on freedom of information should persuade the AIG to make available to the general public much more information, whilst still respecting areas in which confidentiality is required.

2. Executive Summary

All commercial movements for which there is currently no information in the list of the day’s arrivals or departures, as shown on the web site of the AIG and also the teletext on TSR television emissions, should have a minimum of information available via separate pages on this web site. Whilst respecting the confidentiality aspects, it should be possible at least to identify the airline company operating the flight, its scheduled and predicted movement time, and even the partner airport concerned.

In a manner akin to the services offered via the EANS web site for the various noise monitoring stations installed around the airport by ARAG and ATCR-AIG, it should be possible to consult the information recorded by each of the MIABA stations.

In a similar manner again to these services of EANS, and also to services offered at other European airports (e.g. London Gatwick, plus also the real-time system for Zurich airport, it should be possible to show almost in real time the trajectories of particular aircraft or at particular times of day.

The monthly “Relevé des nuisances sonores”, which is distributed to the CCLNTA and other various interested bodies, should document all cases of aircraft movements for which a report has of necessity had to be sent to OFAC. This would be an important step away from the current situation, in which neither OFAC nor the AIG will allow people residing around Geneva airport to know why they may have been disturbed by very noisy and/or late (or even early) aircraft.

3. In greater detail

It has been the observation by ARAG that there is virtually no information which can be obtained relative to anything other than regularly scheduled flights of airline companies operating at Geneva airport, plus important charter flights. However, there are a very large number of aircraft movements which do not fall into these categories, yet which may operate sometimes at very unsociable hours of the night. Although some particularly extreme cases have been discussed within the CCLNTA, for the vast majority of such cases, attempts by ARAG to obtain information, whether by requests to the airline companies concerned, to the AIG or directly to OFAC, have invariably failed.

This failure is deeply regrettable. It is difficult to understand why, when a large regularly-scheduled commercial flight arrives or departs especially late or early in the day, the Geneva airport web site (and other related public information sites, as well as the teletext on Swiss TV) permits a rapid identification of the flight, the place of origin or destination, the scheduled time and an indication of actual expected time. Why should it not be acceptable to obtain most of this information also for unscheduled flights? No-one is requesting private information such as the names of the passengers or the name of the company which may have purchased the flight.

The lack of explanations also extends to the various derogations which the AIG may give when circumstances are considered to be exceptional and unforeseeable. The AIG management always claim to be very strict on giving such derogations, and must inform OFAC in all such cases. However, is there any good reason not to pass on this information to the people who may have been disturbed by the movements which are granted these derogations?

Noise is also sometimes heard in places which are not normally subject to aircraft noise, most often because of a deviation of trajectory from what is the normal case. Whilst frequently involving helicopter noise (for which pilots are sometimes allowed to fly without an active transponder, thus making subsequent identification of the exact trajectory and height impossible), some are caused by deviations due to particular circumstances. ARAG knows of airports of which the web site can be used to indicate trajectories of particular aircraft or particular times of day. However, for information at Geneva it is necessary to make individual requests, in the hope of getting a specific answer at some later date. This is not very modern, being much less interesting than the site of EANS, which can show trajectories at airports all over Europe, including Geneva!

Finally, the AIG possesses a system of noise measurement (MIABA), based upon an automated analysis of the noise measurements made by a set of microphones installed at various places around the airport. However, unlike the noise measurement stations installed by ARAG and the ATCR-AIG, it is not possible to see the raw data registered by these stations. All that is available is a monthly set of overall noise measurement averages for each microphone. This is insufficient for someone who wants to know if a particularly loud noise near one of the noise measurement was registered as being that produced by an aircraft, together with what was the level of the noise.

The ARAG representative on the CCLNTA has reported that the AIG environmental action plans for 2010 includes a general proposition to improve the information content of the AIG Web site. The apparent aim is to allow the general public better to understand what is being done by the AIG as part of the fight against noise pollution. Whilst ARAG entirely approves of this proposition, it has to be said that the information to be included should be related to what the general public would like to know, rather than simply what the AIG would like to write. The proposals in this document refer to information which ARAG believes should be available to members of the general public affected by the noise generated by airport usage.

4. Conclusions and summary

ARAG sees no reason why the AIG should not be able to match, and probably to improve upon, the type of information which is currently available via the ARAG web site. ARAG also believes that the AIG could benefit by disclosing more information on why certain derogations were given (often for late flights), why certain aircraft movements may have generated excessive noise and what efforts are being made to convince airlines to move to quieter aircraft.