sonikk4, Quote :- Not quite true, jet ban from 23:00 to 05:00 for Heathrow. And as for the expansion god knows if that will go ahead in the current economic climate....
Believe me the planes circle London 24/7 , its not true they do not fly over London ,I hear them every night and all day , I live in North London and the flight paths have change last year I believe , I think you will find only certain jets do not fly between the hours you quoted , Money grabbers made sure that the same consultation measures as used with the London ULEZ didn't make the slightest difference.
Allan
As it stands the jet ban means no planned take offs between 23:00 and 06:00. now there will be aircraft landing early (04:30) however what they may do then is hold them on the circuit until they are allowed to land. This part is voluntary.
I cannot remember where the holding pattern is for Gatwick and Luton but i'm sure there will be some of these aircraft joining there. The biggest issue that any international flights and this is not a bad issue per se is the jet stream which can cause aircraft to arrive a lot earlier than planned. So yes you are correct and my apologies there about Aircraft circling, i should have been more clear in my orginal answer.
And the biggest things with any Airport is that the majoirty have been there a very long time and then the populace expands around them, people move close knowing full well there is an Airport there and then complain. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Oh and yes flight paths do get modiifed where possible to lessen noise as much as possible. I see that in action every day at work where straight after takeoff they bank hard right (dependant on what runway and what direction)
Below is a snip from HAL and what they try to do.
Around 80% of the night flights at Heathrow are between 04:30 - 06:00 with an average of 16 aircraft arriving each day between these hours under normal pre-Covid conditions. Heathrow has a voluntary ban in place that prevents flights scheduled between 04:30 - 06:00 from landing before 04:30. We also do not schedule any departures between 23:00 - 06:00.