“Zero is directly opposed to unlimited night flights at
Lisbon airport for more than a month” and considers it “illegitimate” that in
the name of updating an air traffic control system “the citizens of Lisbon and
Loures are called to be sacrificed with intolerable night time noise levels,”
the association said in a statement.
At the beginning of August, the Government announced its
intention to approve an ordinance that would allow the temporary annulment of
the part of the law that establishes restrictions on night air traffic between
00:00 and 06:00, which the NAV (Air Navigation) wants to be between the 18th
and 29th of November, to implement a new control system.
The proposal immediately drew criticism from environmental
associations, who recalled that noise levels at Lisbon airport exceed legal
limits, and that the current regime of night time restrictions is not complied
with, with too many planes taking off and landing between 00:00 and 06:00.
In July 2019, in April 2020 and in July 2022, Zero measured
the noise in the vicinity of the airport and the values (except in 2020, in
the midst of the covid-19 pandemic) were “far above” the recommended by the
World Health Organization (WHO), a “broad violation of established limits”.