When trade unionists began raising concerns about the health impact of pollution on airfield ground and service crews, including possible links to cancer, the Copenhagen Airport moved to restrict aircraft engine use and shift towards greener service vehicles.

 

The pollution-control efforts at CPH, as Denmark’s main airfield is known by its international location code, mark the first time a European airport has launched a programme specifically aimed at reducing the risks that ultrafine particulate matter emitted from exhaust have on workers who are on the frontline of air services.

 

Some of the practices have benefitted from lessons learned in reducing another form of aviation pollution – noise.

 

Copenhagen’s programme also offers long-term potential for reducing pollutants, greenhouse gas emissions as well as noise pollution at airports across Europe as passenger traffic grows in the years ahead.

 

But the battle against aviation noise is nothing new. Denmark and other EU states are obliged to control noise under a 2002 regulation that is now being revamped. The updated noise regulation, proposed by the European Commission in December 2011, will reflect advances in engine technologies since the original legislation.

 

It will also incorporate agreements under the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to create a “balanced approach” to noise reduction, which calls for the use of quieter aircraft, improved airport planning and operational procedures that cut noise levels in the air as well as around airfields.

 

Those guidelines overlap with efforts to reduce emissions. New generation engines are 16% more fuel efficient than those in the air today and engines are 75% quieter than those at the dawn of the jet age, according to the European Commission.