More than one in five landings at Heathrow this year are set to be by the quietest type of aircraft available – a rise from the 16% seen in 2017.
The estimate came as the London hub revealed its latest ‘fly quiet and green’ quarterly league table, ranking the 50 busiest airlines based on their performance between April and June.
Turkish Airlines moved into 17th place on the league table, up 25 places from the last quarter, after the introduction of more Boeing 777s to its fleet.
Improved ability to fly within the specified departure routes known as ‘noise preferential routes’ (NPRs) has also helped improve the carrier’s position.
SAS was knocked off the top spot by Aer Lingus, which has moved up three places from last quarter.
The Scandinavian carrier now sits in second place, followed closely by British Airways short-haul in third.
The top three performers scored highly in six of the seven noise and emission metrics used to rank airlines.
All three have shown a clear upward trend in their use of a quieter arrivals procedure ‘continuous descent approach’ (CDA) and better adherence to the NPRs.
Another strong performer is Oman Air which has also been working closely with Heathrow to improve its position by 11 places over the previous three months.
Saudi Arabian Airlines is expected to make improvements over the next quarters, due to “active engagement” with Heathrow’s operational team.
The airline has also just taken delivery of a new system which allows it to see how each aircraft has performed on measures like CDA and track keeping, within 20 minutes of arriving at Heathrow, and to engage with flight crews to drive up performance.
Heathrow sustainability director Matt Gorman said: “The latest league table results raises the bar for airlines, who have shown that they remain committed to flying quieter and greener.
“Our local communities are at the heart of this programme. Heathrow will continue to work closely with our airline partners to improve results even further, as part of our mission to be a better neighbour.”