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October 2007: Ryanair arrived at Belfast City Airport with Boeing 737-800s and communities are now being bombarded with unprecedented levels of noise.
Ryanair is predicting that if it gets the runway extension which is states that Belfast City Airport gave them an understanding about prior to agreeing to come to the airport, it will rapidly expand its number of routes. The consequences for tens of thousands of people below the flight paths would be:
Ryanair Boeing 737-800s have been recorded creating noise levels of nearly 80 decibels climbing out of Belfast 5km from the airport – a pneumatic drill at a distance of 7m away registers at 90 decibels. Noise levels for turbo-prop aircraft at the same location were recorded as below 65 decibels. Each 10 decibel rise equals a doubling of noise levels, so large jets such as the Ryanair 737-800 are more than twice as loud as smaller turbo-prop aircraft – this is despite the airline's reassurance that residents need not be alarmed because it would be using the quietest aircraft... BCAWatch call on the Minister of the Environment, the Department of the Environment, Belfast City Council and North Down Borough Council to ensure that Ryanair's predictions do not affect Belfast City Council's ability to comply with the European Noise Directive which commits the Northern Ireland authorities to: "Developing a long-term EU strategy, which includes objectives to reduce the number of people affected by noise in the longer term, and provides a framework for developing existing Community policy on noise reduction from source."
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