Brussels Airport publishes report on noise contours 2022

Brussels Airport permanently carries out sound measurements to map out the noise impact around the airport. You can view these measurements here.  

In addition, the airport also has noise contours calculated every year by an independent recognised noise expert. You can read the complete report on the noise contours for 2022 here.  

Number of potentially highly annoyed people is lower than in 2019  

As in 2020 and 2021, air traffic to and from Brussels Airport was still strongly affected by the effects of the COVID crisis in 2022 as well. Thus, the number of flight movements was still 24% lower compared to 2019. This evolution is of course also reflected in the results of the noise contours: noise levels are overall significantly lower than in the year 2019. The number of potentially highly annoyed people within the Lden - noise contour of 55 dB(A) (see map below) was almost 20% lower in 2022 with 11,744 people compared to 14,469 people in the year 2019. 

In more detail, the following conclusions apply:  

• For all municipalities, there is a decrease in the number of potentially highly annoyed people compared to the year 2019, with the exception of:  
  • The municipalities under the landing route to runway 01 (Kraainem, Wezembeek-Oppem, Sint-Pieters-Woluwe) where there is an increase due to the increased use of runway 01 because of meteorological conditions (e.g. northerly and easterly winds).   
  • The municipalities below the landing route to runway 25R (Steenokkerzeel, Kampenhout) where noise levels remained the same because noise levels here are strongly determined by cargo traffic, and on this segment the Covid crisis had (almost) no impact.   
     
• The evolution of the population density within the noise contours also plays a role in the results. In this report, for the 2022 noise contours, the population figures as of 1/1/2023 (the most recently available) were used to make the counts. Compared to the population figures on 1/1/2022, there is an increase in the number of potentially highly annoyed people by 155 (or 1.3%) solely due to the increase in building and population within the zone of the noise contours.