Italy's transportation minister, Tiziano Treu, is proposing a total night flying curfew between midnight and 05:00 at the new Milan Malpensa 2000 Airport. For noisier aircraft, the curfew period would be extended to between 20:00 and 06:00.
Although scheduled passenger flights would not be affected greatly, charter, cargo and mail flights would be. Malpensa 2000 owner SEA says about 70 flights could be cancelled if the ban were imposed, with a potential loss of about L25 billion ($13.6 million) a year.
SEA says it would not oppose the ban if the same rules were imposed on competing Italian airports. Airline users of Malpensa are pushing for the adoption of a new noise policy leading to reduced noise, but avoiding a total night ban.
Source: Flight International