Aer Lingus wins ‘fly quiet and green’ nod from Heathrow

Britain's Heathrow Airport has named Aer Lingus as the third cleanest and quietest airline flying into the hub in its rankings for the third quarter of this year.

The Irish carrier comes in behind Air India and Australia's Qantas, making it the best short-haul performer in the London gateway's "fly quiet and green" chart.

Aer Lingus scored 920 points against 930 for Air India and 921 for the Australian flag carrier, whose chief executive is Irishman Alan Joyce.

The Irish company finished ahead of British Airways - short haul services - which were ranked fourth overall, Scandinavian carrier, SAS, Gulf players such as Emirates and Etihad, and all the US airlines using Heathrow.

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Aer Lingus has a significant presence at Heathrow, which it serves from Dublin, Cork and Shannon. Dublin-London generally is the busiest air route in Europe. A spokesman said Aer Lingus was pleased with the result.

Air India

Air India's high score is largely down to the fact that the airline only uses Boeing Dreamliners, designed to cut noise and use fuel more efficiently, on its Heathrow services.

Heathrow's three dirtiest and noisiest carriers during the three-month period were Kuwait Airways, Turkish Airlines - long haul and Saudi Arabian Airlines.

Heathrow publishes quarterly rankings of its cleanest and quietest airlines. The London Airport is Europe’s busiest and regularly gets flack from nearby communities concerned at noise and pollution.

In a statement released with the results, Heathrow says that over the last 11 years, the number of nearby homes affected by noise from the airport’s operations has fallen by 15 per cent.