Night flights: how curfews, quotas and bans work

The daily total of flights at an airport says little about your nights. What matters is when the last plane goes, when the first one comes, and how many there are in between. That is decided by night rules, which differ more from airport to airport than almost anything else about aircraft noise.

The kinds of night restriction

Most airports use more than one of these:

"Night" also means different things. In the UK rules it runs from 23:00 to 07:00, with the tightest limits from 23:30 to 06:00. At Frankfurt and Munich, the hours either side of the ban, 22:00 to 23:00 and 05:00 to 06:00, are called shoulder hours and have their own caps.

Curfews and bans

A curfew is the simplest rule. Even where one exists, it usually applies to scheduled flights, with room for emergencies and some delays.

• Frankfurt bans scheduled flights between 23:00 and 05:00. In the shoulder hours, 22:00 to 23:00 and 05:00 to 06:00, there may be no more than 133 flights a night on average over the year, a limit that follows a 2012 ruling by Germany's Federal Administrative Court. Delayed flights can still leave after 23:00 if the delay was outside the airline's control, such as a thunderstorm, but not after midnight.
• Zurich operates from 06:00 to 23:30. Flights may be scheduled only until 23:00; the last half hour is for clearing delays, and during the curfew every take-off or landing needs a special permit.
• Munich allows only night mail flights and flights that check navigation equipment between midnight and 05:00. In the shoulder hours, 22:00 to midnight and 05:00 to 06:00, scheduled and charter flights are capped at 28 a night, and all night flights together must stay within an annual noise budget.
• Sydney has a curfew from 23:00 to 06:00 written into an Act of Parliament. The Act allows a small weekly quota of international passenger flights in the first and last hour, emergencies and dispensations from the minister in exceptional cases, among a few other exceptions.

Quotas: how the UK's night rules work

Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted are the UK's "designated" airports, where the Department for Transport sets the night rules. The current rules run from October 2025 to October 2028. They combine a movement limit and a noise quota, both for the night quota period from 23:30 to 06:00, split into a summer and a winter season.

The quota count (QC) system dates from 1993. Each aircraft type gets a score from its certified noise level, measured in EPNdB, a unit used for aircraft certification. The bands are 3 dB wide and the score doubles with each band:

Every night flight uses up its score from the season's budget. One flight scored 2 uses as much of the budget as 16 flights scored 0.125, so the system pushes airlines towards quieter aircraft at night. Since the rules were tightened, every flight counts towards the movement limit, even those scored 0. Aircraft scored 4 or more have been banned in the night quota period since October 2022, and the loudest, scored 8 and 16, are banned from 23:00 to 07:00.

Up to 10% of an unused limit can be carried into the next season, and an airport that goes over is penalised in the next one. The government can grant dispensations that don't count against the limits, but only for exceptional events outside the control of airlines and the airport, such as emergencies or widespread air traffic disruption. Delayed cargo flights and extra flights to meet demand still count.

At Heathrow, a voluntary arrangement goes further: no flights are scheduled between 23:30 and 04:30, and flights due between 04:30 and 06:00 may not land before 04:30. Our recordings match: a typical night has no landings or take-offs from about 23:30 to 04:35, then arrivals build quickly. The Heathrow page has the figures.

How new night restrictions are set

In the EU, new noise restrictions at airports with more than 50,000 civil flights a year must follow Regulation 598/2014, which applies the "balanced approach" agreed internationally. The authority must look at four kinds of measure together: quieter aircraft, planning of land use around the airport, quieter flying procedures, and operating restrictions. Restrictions such as a night ban come only after the others have been considered, and the authority must choose the most cost-effective mix.

The rules give residents a voice. Local residents are among the interested parties who must get at least three months to comment before a new restriction is adopted, the authority must be independent of anyone affected by the decision, and there must be a right of appeal to a different body. Six months' notice must be given before a restriction takes effect. Restrictions in place before June 2016 were kept.

The UK kept the same regulation after leaving the EU. In England and Wales, the local planning authority is the decision-maker for restrictions set through planning, and the government otherwise. Since 1 July 2026 the UK notice period has been cut from eight months to two.

In the US, a 1990 law makes new curfews hard to introduce. An airport that wants to limit the hours of today's jets needs the FAA's approval, and must prove six conditions with substantial evidence; restrictions already in place in 1990 were kept. When Burbank asked for a full night curfew, the FAA refused in 2009, finding the evidence met only two of the six.

What night rules mean for you

Read your airport's rules closely, because the headline can mislead:

• A ban usually covers scheduled flights only. Delays and emergencies still fly, and on a bad weather day that can mean several late planes.
• The shoulder hours often carry the most traffic. At Heathrow, most night flights land between 04:30 and 06:00. The hour before 07:00 can be almost as busy as the day.
• Limits are seasonal and yearly. A cap of 5,800 flights a year says nothing about which nights they fall on, or which runway they use.
• Rules change on a cycle. The London rules run to October 2028, and the government's draft policy for Heathrow's expansion proposes a ban on scheduled night flights for six and a half hours of the night. That is when residents' views count, as our guide to responding to consultations explains.

The World Health Organization's guidelines for Europe recommend keeping aircraft noise at night below 40 dB Lnight, the level at which about one person in ten is highly disturbed in their sleep; our guide to aircraft noise and sleep covers the research. The rules set the limits, but only the flights themselves tell you how many loud planes an address hears after 23:00 and before 07:00.