Once again come this news regarding the problems between Switzerland and Germany for the noise of airplanes landing in Zurich:

http://www.nzz.ch/aktuell/zuerich/st...den-1.17310970

I just have some questions:

1- If the airport were located in Germany, what would be the Swiss people and government reaction?

2- Do the Swiss citizens that are complaining for the noise, do never ever use an airplane?

3- Is it so difficult for some to accept that progress also comes with some uncomfortable things?

4- Is this not one of those cases were the rights of big majority shoud prevails over a small minority?

Are you saying that the residents around airports in London, Vienna, Munich, and all the rest don't complain about the noise! And, as far as I know Switzerland is THE country where the rights of the majority (as in a vote) prevail.

The agreement that the Swiss Government made with the German Transport Minister July 02, 2012 would appear to be a good solution for both nations. However, runway 10/28 needs to be extended, which isn't a really long term brilliant idea. Because of high ground to the west of the airport, airliners can't land towards the east (runway 10), so this west/east runway is basically a one way landing airport. Also, whilst this runway wil see increased activity in the evenings, more people in Switzerland will be affected by aircraft than they were before. The fact that Germany is allowing ZRH to start the regular northern arrivals at 06:30 isn't that much of a big deal weekdays, as all the heavy Airbus traffic arrives from 06:00 until about 06:30, this will actually make ATC procedures more complicated to have to switch approach procedures for just 30 minutes of specific arrivals. And as Zürich's electorate will have to authorize the expenditure and building of the lengthened runway, you can guarantee that all the anti-noise groups are already scheming their individual manifestos against the development.

Regarding the OP's specific rhetorical questions, yes to all of them. I'd vouch that pretty much everyone uses or needs ZRH in some way or another, be that for business or pleasure travel or with the goods they consume that arrive via air freight.

If you live near an airport then you should lose your right to complain about noise, airports are not known for being quite and its not like they suddenly appear from nowhere. So if you live near one and then decide heh its noisy here maybe I should complain then you only have yourself to blame!

Your questions are irrelevant. The history is that until 15 years ago the traffic into Zurich Airport (Kloten) mainly came in over Germany.

The southern approach, which comes in over a residential area, that the complaints are about was rarely used. Then Moritz Leuenberger, the transport minister, presumably because he didn't live under the southern approach, suddenly and to everyone's dismay agreed that planes should avoid Germany as much as possible.

So it's not that that people don't use planes, or that they are not accepting progress or the majority v. a minority. It's that everyone was living happily, especially in some prime property, when all of a sudden they found themselves on the flight path. It wasn't a gradual change...

Here's a map.

Great explanation! thank you!

Once again "Moritz Leuenberger" one of the Swissair gravedigger's... the same that after left office and didn't care about incompatibilities in working for the private sector.... A genius!

I do complete agree... airports doesn't appear from nowhere

1) Why do you make so much of a difference ? There is none ! The noise of the German anti-aircraft-noise was so much that many forgot that Swiss airport adversaries for decades made life diffcult for the airport

2) Sure both Swiss complainers and German complainers use the airplanes themselves.

3) Progress was and is that the growing noise limitations "encouraged" the industry to produce less noisy engines. The result is perfectly remarkable.

4) a majority in recent votes voted in favour of the airport. So that yes, some of those opponents had to see that they are just a minority, but they believe that the majority was mislead, non-informed and wrong

The new northern approach may not be ideal but will have to be implemented, with or without runway extensions, but of course with improvements to the infrastructure. YES, the ATC will have to send airplanes into a hold over AG, but people deeper inside B-W have never complained really, so that this is surviveable. Vital for the airport will be to keep the Südanflug alive as one of the various options. In order not to have a "Sackbahnhof-scenario" again

1. The Germans were demanding that flights over Germany be reduced. It wasn't Leuenberger who decided that.

2. The deal (rejected by the Swiss side) Leuenberger reached with the Germans was actually better for the Swiss side than the new deal!

As a frequent traveller, holds on arrival at ZRH are becoming more common.

On my return flights to Switzerland it is not a big problem - I just accept that I will get home a bit later than planned.

However late arrivals also delay departures. There I find that I am missing more connections as a result of either holds for incoming passengers on connecting flights or my flight was delayed because of late inbound. Either way I miss the last flight to my final destination.

My travel agent is now recommending that I take the train to Frankfurt the night before and fly from there. Interesting outcome.

3): yes, as a resident of Kloten since 1967 I agree, noise reduction has been very successful. Over the years there have been many noisy planes, one of the worst was the Caravelle, every take-off caused the walls to tremble. Some planes were banned because of the noise, one of them a British plane - Vickers Viscount if I remember rightly.

One important aspect is the wind, whether strong and from which direction. There are some days in Kloten when, if you don't live directly under the flight path, you'd hardly know that there is an airport nearby.

Until about 25 years ago we used to be disturbed day and night (even on the other side of Kloten) by jet engines being tested at full power. The measures which have been implemented to avoid this have worked wonders.

that was with the introducion of the engine run silencer bays outside the hangars , on google earth its the big green things.

These are now being removed and a silencer tent is going to be built over the next year or 2.

People are often calling the airport authority to complain about noise during the night even when no planes are being tested , the logs for the silencer use are strictly controlled .

There is a specific engine test bed facility but the noise is so damped it cant be heard fom 200m away and that operates during office hours.

Nah, you remembered incorrectly. The Viscount was a short and medium range 4 prop airliner powered by Dart engines, not particularly noisy, you probably mean the mighty VC-10, four rear fuselage mounted Conway engines that made a true racket and flown by BOAC and Gulf Air at the time. The same engines that a few Boeing 720 and 707 operators also used into ZRH like El Al for example. It's not as though it was just the foreigners either, Swissair's CV990 Coronados weren't exactly stealth machines and early DC-8s seemed to create more noise than thrust.

Meh, just moved to Schwamendingen which I can't say I had pegged as 'near the airport' and of course the agent said nothing - and when the planes are coming in it's bloody noisy!

That said, it seems to be worse when the weather is bad, and though irritating I'm just soundproofing the bedroom and trusting that I'll acclimate soon. However, I can understand that some people are going to go spare from the annoyance.

busy times are 6-8 11-12 4-6 and around 8-9.
guess the viewing was in one of the quiet periods

Yep - and probably deliberately so. It was made worse by the first night being exceptionally busy, but now I'm getting used to it and seeing that most nights its not so bad

mmmm crafty.... soon you wont even hear it, takes a few weeks

that is a lot like 6 hrs a day and the cost of housing is not that low either.