AvGen analysis casts doubt on accuracy of Heathrow’s “Fly Quiet & Clean” league table

Following the recent revisions to Heathrow’s flagship “Fly Quiet” programme, which every 3 months ranks the airport’s top 50 airlines on their environmental performance, UK-based consultancy AvGen Limited has cast serious doubts on the published results.  Some of the anomalies AvGen uncovered are that in the latest Q2 2017 results of some of the airport’s regular scheduled airlines, such as Icelandair, MEA and Egyptair are omitted, while carriers with markedly fewer flights during the period (for example Croatian and China Southern) are included. Another anomaly is airlines being awarded scores on average 45% higher than their performance, under Heathrow’s own published rules, should merit.  There is also inconsistent application of the “weighting” scheme, resulting in most airlines not being ranked in their true position (e.g. top performer Delta Air Lines gets demoted to 7th place). There is a serious lack of transparency, with no way to know how many points a given airline is awarded for each individual environmental measure, such as NOx emissions, and no ability to tell whether a carrier’s performance in any area has improved or worsened quarter-on-quarter. So the Heathrow tables, much flaunted by the airport, mean very little and are not helpful.
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AvGen analysis casts doubt on Heathrow’s “Fly Quiet & Clean” league table

4.10.2017 (AvGen)

Following the recent revisions to Heathrow’s flagship “Fly Quiet” programme, which every 3 months ranks the airport’s top 50 airlines on their environmental performance, UK-based consultancy AvGen Limited has cast serious doubts on the published results.

Among the anomalies that AvGen uncovered are:

i) omission from the latest Q2 2017 results of some of the airport’s regular scheduled airlines, such as Icelandair, MEA and Egyptair, while carriers with markedly fewer flights during the period (for example Croatian and China Southern) are included.

ii) airlines being awarded scores on average 45% higher than their performance, under Heathrow’s own published rules, should merit

iii) inconsistent application of the “weighting” scheme, resulting in most airlines not                  being ranked in their true position (e.g. top performer Delta Air Lines gets demoted to               7th place)

iv) lack of transparency, with no way to know how many points a given airline is awarded for each individual environmental measure, such as NOx emissions, and no ability to tell whether a carrier’s performance in any area has improved or worsened quarter-on-quarter

Commenting on its findings, AvGen CEO Dave Reid said “while we fully support the aims of the Fly Quiet & Clean programme, its implementation has been less than impressive and all of our requests for Heathrow to supply a breakdown of data and calculations to substantiate its results have been declined, which we feel speaks for itself”.

AvGen repeatedly advised Heathrow of its concerns (re both Q1 and Q2), but they declined all requests for a breakdown of how they reached their results.

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Comment by an AirportWatch member who attended a recent Heathrow Community Noise Forum meeting:

My impression of the discussion [about the Fly Quite & Clean programme] at HCNF was that Heathrow made no attempt to defend their methodology and answer any detailed criticisms from Avgen – but rather just stated that their purpose with FlyQuiet was to promote active engagement with airlines to improve their practices and they were comfortable with how they were doing it.

It left me with the impression that they could well manipulate the figures to pick off particular airlines when they felt it appropriate to do so and reward others in a somewhat arbitrary process. They say they have responded to Avgen – it would interesting to see what they said and hear their views on the rigour and impartiality of the process.


Heathrow’s Q2 “LHR Airspace & Noise Performance Report”

Heathrow’s belated Q2 “LHR Airspace & Noise Performance Report” (formerly
the Flight Performance Report) has just been released.  As with previous
reports, it maintains the fiction that no departures at all have taken off
from the arrival runway during the current year.

Having queried this erroneous data with Heathrow on several previous
occasions and received no explanation for the misleading chart in the
report, we have no plans to make any further enquiries.

For stakeholders who have an interest in accurate reporting of
out-of-alternation takeoffs (for example communities under the departure
flightpaths), this is a replacement for the graph at the bottom of Page 25 in the
current Heathrow report (shown below it – indicating no departing flights off the landing runway).  More info available from dave.reid@avgen.com

Table showing the figures as calculated by AvGen

compared to what is on P 25 of the Heathrow report, as put out by Heathrow airport  http://www.heathrow.com/file_source/HeathrowNoise/Static/LHR-ANP-Q2-2017.pdf 

From AvGen


ILLUSTRATION OF “FLY QUIET & CLEAN” FLAWED MATHS

Airlines gain a maximum aggregate score of 1,000 points by being in first place for every metric.

An airline in last (50th) place for any metric scores 0 points for that metric.

Overall league table scores are the total of an airline’s scores for all seven metrics.

Weighting alters the maximum points for different metrics – for track-keeping, first place merits 268 points.

Etihad ranks 35th (out of 50) for track-keeping, and so forfeits 186 of those 268 points, scoring 82.

So Etihad can’t possibly merit an aggregate score of 900 out of 1,000 !

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© AvGen Limited 2017

http://www.avgen.co.uk/AvGen2/?page=Consultancy-services-44

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By contrast, see the sort of articles put out by the press (who do not understand what Heathrow has done with the figures) giving the impression of huge noise improvements by Heathrow:

Dreamliners flying high as Heathrow hits new low noise record

Heathrow’s new “Fly Quiet and Clean” report shows airlines are increasingly using the quietest, cleanest aircraft in their routes to Britain’s hub airport. The report ranks the 50 busiest airlines operating at Heathrow from April to June this year, based on seven noise and emissions metrics. The latest results come as Heathrow hits a noise milestone – the first month without the oldest generation, and noisiest, “Chapter 3” aircraft operating at the airport.

The League report shows Air India has climbed an astounding 37 places to place 5th this quarter, in part because of their use of Boeing Dreamliners at Heathrow, an aircraft that has 20-25% fewer C02 emissions and a smaller noise effect than the airplanes it replaces. Israeli airline El Al (48th) has now started operating a Dreamliner on its Heathrow route from September to March 2018, which should lead to an improved rank in the next quarter scores.  Dreamliners are now the fastest growing aircraft type at Heathrow, with more than 700 additional flights being made on this aircraft in June 2017 compared to last year.

Early phase out of the noisiest planes is a key part of Heathrow’s Noise Blueprint. Becoming the first large European airport to be completely free of “Chapter 3” aircraft, the oldest and noisiest classification of aircraft, by 2020 is a key promise in the blueprint and Heathrow will be working to ensure the trend started this month continues. This year, Heathrow increased the charges airlines pay to land the noisiest aircraft so that, on average, airlines pay ten times more to fly Chapter 3 planes than they pay for the quietest aircraft, like Dreamliners.

Air India has also improved its score because of its exemplary “track keeping” – the ability to adhere to the Government-set noise preferential routes in the skies around Heathrow – this quarter.  Track keeping winners this quarter also include Singapore Airlines, jumping up 21 places to rank 12th, and Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, SN Brussels which are all up by more than 10 places compared to last quarter.

Regional airline FlyBe features in the League Table for the first time, at a good debut position of 29th. Heathrow continues to work with all airlines, particularly those at the bottom of the League Table to improve their scores and is already seeing some success.

Matt Gorman, Heathrow Director of Sustainability at Heathrow said:

“Heathrow airlines continue to bring the best of their fleet to our airport – a trend which not only delivers benefits for our passengers, but also makes our skies quieter and cleaner. Upgrading aircraft is the single best way to cut emissions, and to continue to shrink our noise footprint. We are pleased to see our efforts, including increasing our charges for noisier aircraft this year, are yielding results and we hope to continue the trend seen this month so our passengers and local communities benefit from Heathrow’s newer, cleaner fleets.”

https://eturbonews.com/166031/dreamliners-flying-high-heathrow-hits-new-low-noise-record 

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