The Brussels environment agency is taking nuisance airlines that overfly the Belgian capital to court for the first time, due to the number of noisy flights that still break noise pollution laws. The legal action is based on 63 official reports drawn up since May 2024, after multiple complaints going back years by residents of the worst hit municipalities around the city.
Noise pollution affects around 220,000 people in the capital, according to a 2023 study by the Flemish Federation for a Better Environment (Bond Beter Leefmilieu), and that’s despite attempts to address the problem. In early 2023 for example, Brussels Airport introduced a new tariff structure to categorise planes into eight bands and penalise the noisiest and most polluting operators with airport charges up to 20 times those applied to more modern aircraft.
One of the neighbourhoods worst affected is Sint-Lambrechts-Woluwe, a prosperous residential area which is home to around 60,000 inhabitants. As far back as 2017, the regional environment minister measured the noise pollution from an office block roof in the district and found not only a growing number of aircraft overflying Sint-Lambrechts-Woluwe, but also noise violations from a shocking 28% percent of flights. To make matters worse, most of the illegal noise occurs between 6am and 7am, research has found. Disturbances to sleep due to noise pollution have been shown to have a detrimental effect on human health, with night flights particularly guilty, and heart and vascular health in men most vulnerable.
In 2024, the ear-splitting problem has not gone away and huge sums have been laid out to compensate residents in various neighbourhoods for the impact of the aircraft noise on their lives. As Olivier Maingain, mayor of Sint-Lambrechts-Woluwe points out: “It took 7 years before Brussels Environment finally agreed to prosecute the airlines that overfly the municipality in violation of noise standards.”
During those years, the debate has raged on and various tactics have been tried, such as Woluwé appealing against the new environment permit issued by the Flemish authorities for Brussels Airport in Zaventem, which is technically in Flemish Brabant. A petition by residents in the municipality, which feels the brunt of 45% of flights to and from the hub, has garnered over 4,000 signatures from residents who have implored the country’s federal government to solve the capital’s noise pollution problem. Will the latest legal action be the thing to do the trick?
