Equitable Aircraft Noise-Abatement Departure Procedures

This paper deals with the optimization of aircraft noise-abatement departure procedures. A multicriteria optimization strategy is presented, where the fairness of the optimal trajectories is assessed vis-à-vis the different noise-sensitive locations around the airport of study. This equitable optimization is formulated as the minimization of the maximum noise-annoyance deviation regarding all considered locations. This strategy is complemented with an iterative lexicographic optimization algorithm which, in turn, guarantees the Pareto efficiency condition of the final solution. Aircraft operating costs are also considered by neglecting the marginal benefits of noise reduction below a certain threshold value. An application example is shown (as an illustrative case) based on a departure of runway 02 at Girona airport in Catalonia, Spain. The results show the feasibility of this technique, which is intended to be used by procedure designers or airport authorities.