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Residents of affluent commuter towns and villages are in uproar over low-flying aircraft as airports test new flight paths.
Heathrow was flooded by an average of 500 complaints a day last month – the highest number in its history – after it began using new flight paths over Berkshire and Surrey.
Residents in Ascot complained the aircraft noise was drowning out conversations and disturbing sleep. Some claim it will force them to move from the town.
The airport apologised for the disturbance caused by the trials, which began six weeks ago with no warning and will end early, because of the backlash, the Sunday Times reported.
Heathrow received 14,301 complaints last month, up from 3,357 in the same month last year. Last week the airport said it was ending the trial two months early on November 12.
London mayor Boris Johnson said the “colossal level of complaints” in recent weeks showed that building a third runway at Heathrow “will never be acceptable”.
“It is beyond belief that no warning was given to my office or to local residents that these trials were to begin, and I will be writing to the secretary of state to ask for a full explanation,” he told the newspaper.
Gatwick, Stansted, Birmingham, London City and Luton airports have also either designed new flight paths or are planning to fly aircraft in a more concentrated pattern on existing routes.
The changes are part of a drive to overhaul the UK’s airspace by 2020 and use more accurate navigation technology.
Instead of following navigational beacons on the ground when approaching or departing airports, aircraft will use satellite navigation.
This system, known as performance-based navigation, will allow pilots to fly their routes more precisely and noise will be concentrated along narrower flight paths.
It could also allow the distance between flight paths to be reduced and enable aircraft to make more fuel-efficient turns, and climb more quickly or descend later.
The change has prompted some airports and National Air Traffic Services to test new flight paths for departing aircraft flying below 4,000ft.
Heathrow is testing five departure routes. One goes over Ascot and Sunninghill in Berkshire and Windlesham and Lightwater in Surrey, while others concentrate flights over Old Windsor, Twickenham and Hampton.
Heathrow insisted the routes being tested “are not indicative of future flight paths”.
Sustainability and environment director Matt Gorman said: “We are sorry for communities that have experienced an increase in noise as a result of these trials. We are taking that feedback into account in the design of any future trials and in thinking about how we communicate about those trials.”
Birmingham airport has been testing two new flight paths for departing aircraft since May, which residents claim is causing misery in the villages of Balsall Common and Hampton in Arden.
Gatwick received about 200 complaints a day when a flight path was tested over West Sussex earlier this year.
At Stansted, Nats is proposing to double the number of aircraft flying over Essex towards Clacton, while cutting the number of flights departing towards the Thames.
London City is proposing a more concentrated flight path over Poplar, Leyton and Wanstead in east London but fewer flights over Romford. Luton would see fewer flights over St Albans but more flights over the village of Sandridge.
Nats said: “Modernising the airspace is essential for the UK to remain competitive.”