Night flight dispensation guidance: update
Updated 27 March 2023
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/night-flight-restrictions-at-heathrow-gatwick-and-stansted-airports-between-2022-and-2024-plus-future-night-flight-policy/outcome/night-flight-dispensation-guidance-update
In the Night flight restrictions consultation outcome, published in July 2021, we stated that we would publish updated guidance on the dispensation process before the new night flight regime commenced in October 2022.
The summer of 2022 was particularly challenging from an international air traffic control perspective and resulted in an increase in late-running flights, and a corresponding higher number of night flight dispensations. This followed summers in 2020 and 2021, when the numbers of dispensations were very low, reflecting the much lower levels of traffic at the designated airports owing to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A movement granted a dispensation does not count towards an airport’s movement allowance. The government appreciates that this creates uncertainty around how many night flights communities living near to airports can expect. However, at the same time, the dispensation process is a vital tool for resilience purposes.
Given the number of night flight dispensations witnessed during the early part of the summer, we have reflected on whether it is right to update the guidance before we have had chance to properly analyse and appraise what happened in the summer season. We want to take this additional evidence into account before publishing any revision to our night flight dispensation guidance. As such we are now undertaking that detailed review of the summer season.
We will provide an update on dispensation guidance within the documentation to be launched as part of the main night flight regime consultation, which is expected to launch in late 2023.