Air Transport - the Social & Environmental Costs

The polluter in the sky

Air Pollution

Airport and airline operations jeopardise our health

• directly, through toxic nitrogen oxide emissions from aircraft
• indirectly, by generating huge volumes of road traffic
  

Did you know ?   . .   Aircraft and road traffic can lead to pollution levels as high as those in busy city centres.

"Air pollution caused by air travel and road transport to and around Heathrow is of major concern. West London, around Heathrow airport, is one of the main areas of projected exceedences of the annual average NO2 objective predominantly due to the activities at the airport itself and the high level of vehicle use."

(Extract from Mayor of London's Draft Air Quality Strategy 2001)

Climate Change

Air transport is the world's fastest growing source of climate changing greenhouse gases, yet its emissions are excluded from the Kyoto climate change treaty.

Did you know ?   . .   Aviation generates over 600 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually -nearly as much as that from all human activities in Africa.

(From Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)

UK emissions grew by a staggering 12% in 2004.

Aircraft Noise

The World Health Organisation has shown that aircraft noise damages health and causes:

• Raised incidence of cardio-vascular diseases
• Hypertension and psychiatric conditions
• Damage to children's learning ability
• Depression of children's IQ

Did you know ?   . .   The Government admits that 300,000 people around Heathrow are affected by aircraft noise.

Traffic Congestion

As flights multiply, so does road traffic. Pollution levels go up and traffic congestion worsens.

Each air passenger generates:

• Up to eight car trips if they are driven to an airport and met at a destination airport
• A number of staff car journeys to and from departure and destination airports
• Goods and services traffic for airports and airlines

Did you know ?   . .   Heathrow Terminal 5 was estimated to generate 326 million km of extra driving every year.

Knock-On Development

New and expanded airports:

• Create local environmental damage - new airports and extra runways lead to loss of countryside and greenbelt
• Generate more road traffic - car parks and roads serving airports get bigger and wider
• Ruin our countryside - airports can result in the destruction of heritage buildings and valuable wildlife sites

Did you know ?   . .   The paved area of an airport the size of Heathrow is the equivalent of 200 miles of a three-lane motorway.

Links to Related Pages

• Aviation introduction
• Is aviation out of control ?
• Tax-free aviation
• Government White Paper
• Runway 3 broken pledges
• Other airports and groups (external link)

Page updated Feb 06