UNITED KINGDOM: Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) Is Most Compliant Airline At Heathrow Airport

London’s main gateway, Heathrow Airport (LHR) has unveiled its quarterly list featuring the top 50 noisiest, nastiest, most polluting airlines that fly into the busy airport.

The world’s seventh busiest airport, which registered the 78 million passenger mark in 2017, publishes this list on a quarterly basis, depicting those airlines that like behave, and those that don’t.

During the first quarter of 2018, EgyptAir hits the bottom of the list as the worst airline in the - noise quota count per seat measure.

This section measures the amount of noise a plane makes in relation to the number of passengers it carries.

The Egyptian carrier also scored the last spot, becoming the noisiest, and the one with most violations.

According to LHR, the Cairo-based airline flew routes, and that were less compliant with the noise abatement regulations around the airport.

The airline currently operates four flights per day to Cairo, departing at 13:30, 15:00, 21:05, and 22:35.

London-Heathrow has received thousands of complaints over the last decade because of the noise arriving and departing aircraft produce when operating in/out of the airport.

For this reason, there are pre-established arriving and departing noise preferred routes that airlines must comply with.

EgyptAir’s poor ranking is commensurate with its current flight schedule. The airline often runs delayed between the 23:30 and 04:30 curfew.

Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) scored the first spot as the most compliant airline of all.

Out of a possible score of 1,000 points, SAS landed at 944.

In the second place, LOT Polish Airlines follows with 938. Aer Lingus, Etihad Airways, Flybe, British Airways, Finnair, Delta, United, and Iberia complete the top-10.

During the same period in 2017, British Airways came up in the first spot, followed by Aer Lingus.

Etihad managed to keep the third spot for its second consecutive year.

As far as the local airlines are concerned, Virgin Atlantic keeps the 17th spot, scoring a modest 855 points.

The airline scored the 6th spot in noise quota per seat but dropped to the 36th spot in track keeping violations.

Flybe, however, was the number-one in noise certification, engine emissions certification, and early movements between 23:30 and 04:30.

British Airways (BA) long haul made the 22nd spot with an 824 mark.

The airline reached the second place in noise quota and emissions per seat. However, it fell to the last spot in engine emissions certification.

In the short haul segment, BA remains within the Top 10, scoring 935 points. The airline made the number-one position in noise quota and emissions per seat mark.

Overall, it’s a positive result for the British carriers, scoring decent points and remaining in acceptable positions against its competitors.

The middle of the table finds some interesting airlines.

In the 20th spot, Air India marked an 840 score, followed by Cathay Pacific, Aegean Airlines, Swiss, Qatar Airways, Air France, South African, Eurowings, Singapore, and Thai Airways.

Two of the Middle East Big Three carriers are outside the Top-10. Qatar Airways made the 29th spot in track keeping violations and 35th in continuous descent approach violations.

Emirates, on the other hand, made the 11th overall spot with 881 points.

The Dubai-based giant sometimes brings up to six Airbus A380s per day into LHR—one of the most silent aircraft in the industry.

However, it made the 16th spot in noise quota per seat, mainly because some of its flights operate between late night or early morning hours.

The worst 10 airlines, other than EgyptAir, are Kuwait Airways (49), Turkish Airlines [short haul] (48), El Al (47), Pakistan International Airlines (46), Turkish Airlines [long haul] (45), Korean Air (44), DHL (43), China Southern (42), Air China (41), and Gulf Air (40) complete the list.

Last year, El Al occupied the last spot, scoring 362 points.

This year, however, the Tel Aviv-based carrier scored 528, occupying the 47th place—a three-spot improvement.

In January, LHR announced that environmental charges over airlines increased 7%, starting from January 1, 2018.

The airport expects to reduce the impact on local communities by making it cleaner and quieter with the restructured environmental charge, encouraging airlines to deploy its newest aircraft on LHR-bound routes.

This is the best way to cut emissions and shrink the noise footprint around the airport.

It is a tangible step that will make a real difference to local communities, said John Holland-Kaye, Heathrow CEO.

The new environmental charge forms part of Heathrow’s sustainability strategy called Heathrow 2.0. The airport’s goal is to reach at least a 50% of its passengers to travel in “sustainable transport” by 2030.

This quarterly list is, therefore, a clever way of showing which airlines comply with the airport’s regulations.

By 2025, Heathrow 2.0, will establish an airside ultra-low emission zone, to improve quality of life of local communities through cleaner air.

Heathrow has also been recognized as the Best Airport in Western Europe and for the 9th year in a row, Best Airport for Shopping.

This achievement follows what has been a successful year for the airport, carrying 78 million passengers annually.

The 82% of passengers surveyed in 2017 rated their experience traveling through Heathrow as Excellent or Very Good.

On top of this, Heathrow recorded a personal best in improving flight punctuality with 80.2% of flights departing within 15 minutes of their scheduled departures.


Tourism Observer

East Timor: Timor-Leste Facts And History

Capital:

Dili, population about 150,000.

Government:

East Timor is a parliamentary democracy, in which the President is Head of State and the Prime Minister is Head of Government. The President is directly elected to this largely ceremonial post; he or she appoints the leader of the majority party in parliament as Prime Minister. The President serves for five years.

The Prime Minister is head of the Cabinet, or Council of State.

He also leads the single-house National Parliament.

The highest court is called the Supreme Court of Justice.

Jose Ramos-Horta is the current President of East Timor. The Prime Minister is Xanana Gusmao.

Population:

East Timor's population is around 1.2 million, although no recent census data exist. The country is growing quickly, due both to returning refugees and to a high birth rate.

The people of East Timor belong to dozens of ethnic groups, and intermarriage is common. Some of the largest are the Tetum, around 100,000 strong; the Mambae, at 80,000; the Tukudede, at 63,000; and the Galoli, Kemak, and Bunak, all with about 50,000 people.

There are also small populations of people with mixed Timorese and Portuguese ancestry, called mesticos, as well as ethnic Hakka Chinese (around 2,400 people).

Official Languages:

The official languages of East Timor are Tetum and Portuguese. English and Indonesian are "working languages."

Tetum is an Austronesian language in the Malayo-Polynesian family, related to Malagasy, Tagalog, and Hawaiian.

It is spoken by about 800,000 people world-wide.

Colonists brought Portuguese to East Timor in the sixteenth century, and the Romance language has influenced Tetum to a large degree.

Other commonly-spoken languages include Fataluku, Malalero, Bunak, and Galoli.

Religion:

An estimated 98 per cent of East Timorese are Roman Catholic, another legacy of Portuguese colonization. The remaining two per cent are divided almost evenly between Protestants and Moslems.

A significant proportion of Timorese also retain some traditional animist beliefs and customs from pre-colonial times.

Geography:

East Timor covers the eastern half of Timor, the largest of the Lesser Sunda Islands in the Malay Archipelago. It covers an area of about 14,600 square kilometers, including one non-contiguous piece called the Ocussi-Ambeno region, in the northwest of the island.

The Indonesian province of East Nusa Tenggara lies to the west of East Timor.

East Timor is a mountainous country; the highest point is Mount Ramelau at 2,963 meters (9,721 feet). The lowest point is sea level.

Climate:

East Timor has a tropical monsoon climate, with a wet season from December to April, and a dry season from May through November. During the wet season, average temperatures range between 29 and 35 degrees Celsius (84 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit). In the dry season, temperatures average 20 to 33 degrees Celsius (68 to 91 Fahrenheit).

The island is susceptible to cyclones. It also experiences seismic events such as earthquakes and tsunamis, as it lies on the faultlines of the Pacific Ring of Fire.

Economy:

The economy of East Timor is in shambles, neglected under Portuguese rule, and deliberately sabotaged by occupation troops during the war for independence from Indonesia. As a result, the country is among the poorest in the world.

Close to half of the population lives in poverty, and as many as 70 per cent face chronic food insecurity. Unemployment hovers around the 50 per cent mark, as well. The per capita GDP was only about $750 U.S. in 2006.

East Timor's economy should improve in coming years. Plans are underway to develop off-shore oil reserves, and the price of cash crops like coffee is rising.

Prehistoric Timor:

The inhabitants of Timor are descended from three waves of migrants. The first to settle the island, Vedo-Australoid people related to Sri Lankans, arrived between 40,000 and 20,000 B.C. A second wave of Melanesian people around 3,000 B.C. drove the original inhabitants, called Atoni, up into the interior of Timor. The Melanesians were followed by Malay and Hakka people from southern China.

Most of the Timorese practiced subsistence agriculture. Frequent visits from sea-going Arab, Chinese, and Gujerati traders brought in metal goods, silks, and rice; the Timorese exported beeswax, spices, and fragrant sandalwood.

History of Timor, 1515-present:

By the time the Portuguese made contact with Timor in the early sixteenth century, it was divided into a number of small fiefdoms. The largest was the kingdom of Wehale, composed of a mixture of Tetum, Kemak, and Bunak peoples.

Portuguese explorers claimed Timor for their king in 1515, lured by the promise of spices. For the next 460 years, the Portuguese controlled the eastern half of the island, while the Dutch East India Company took the western half as part of its Indonesian holdings. The Portuguese ruled coastal regions in cooperation with local leaders, but had very little influence in the mountainous interior.

Although their hold on East Timor was tenuous, in 1702 the Portuguese officially added the region to their empire, renaming it "Portuguese Timor." Portugal used East Timor mainly as a dumping ground for exiled convicts.

The formal boundary between the Dutch and Portuguese sides of Timor was not drawn until 1916, when the modern-day border was fixed by the Hague.

In 1941, Australian and Dutch soldiers occupied Timor, hoping to fend off an anticipated invasion by the Imperial Japanese Army. Japan seized the island in February of 1942; the surviving Allied soldiers then joined with local people in guerilla war against the Japanese. Japanese reprisals against the Timorese left about one in ten of the island's population dead, a total of more than 50,000 people.

After the Japanese surrender in 1945, control of East Timor was returned to Portugal. Indonesia declared its independence from the Dutch, but made no mention of annexing East Timor.

In 1974, a coup in Portugal moved the country from a rightist dictatorship to a democracy. The new regime sought to disentangle Portugal from its overseas colonies, a move that the other European colonial powers had made some 20 years earlier. East Timor declared its independence in 1975.

In December of that year, Indonesia invaded East Timor, capturing Dili after just six hours of fighting. Jakarta declaring the region the 27th Indonesian province. This annexation, however, was not recognized by the UN.

Over the next year, between 60,000 and 100,000 Timorese were massacred by Indonesian troops, along with five foreign journalists.

Timorese guerillas kept fighting, but Indonesia did not withdraw until after the fall of Suharto in 1998. When the Timorese voted for independence in an August, 1999 referendum, Indonesian troops destroyed the country's infrastructure.

East Timor joined the UN on September 27, 2002.