Who is responsible for aircraft noise: the airport, the airline or air traffic control?

When a plane wakes you at 5 a.m., it is natural to blame the airport. But the noise is the result of decisions made by several organisations, and each controls a different part of it. That matters when you want something to change, because a complaint or a campaign aimed at the wrong one goes nowhere.

Who controls what: the short answer

In practice, complain to the airport about any flight. It has the flight tracks and noise readings and is the one organisation in contact with all the others. Save your energy for the rules for when they come up for change.

The airport: runways, routes and money

Planes take off and land into the wind, so the wind decides which way the airport operates on a given day. Nobody chooses that.

Within that, the airport sets the rules for how its runways are used. At Heathrow, for instance, the two runways swap between landings and take-offs at 15:00 on westerly days, and the order changes every week, so each street under an approach gets a predictable break. At night Heathrow also rotates its runways over a four-week cycle. Rules like these, and preferred runways at other airports, are the airport's biggest lever over who hears what.

The airport is also responsible for:

• Its routes. An airport can propose changes to its arrival and departure routes through the airspace change process, either as the sponsor or, where several airports share the airspace, through the UK Airspace Design Service. It also monitors how well planes keep to their departure routes: at Heathrow, 95.1% did in 2025.
• Its noise action plan. In the EU, airports with more than 50,000 flights a year are covered by noise action plans, drawn up every five years with public consultation. Heathrow's current plan runs from 2024 to 2028.
• Money. Airports can use their charges to steer airlines: Heathrow raised its charges between 00:00 and 04:30 to discourage flights after midnight. Insulation and relocation schemes are paid for by the airport too.
• Complaints and monitoring. Noise monitors, flight trackers and the noise team all belong to the airport.

What the airport cannot do alone is choose which aircraft airlines fly, steer planes in the air, or change its night limits or flight paths without the government or regulator.

The airline: which aircraft, flown how, and when

The airline chooses the aircraft, and that is the biggest single factor in how loud each flight is. Every new aircraft type has to meet noise standards agreed internationally through ICAO, the UN's aviation agency. The current standard applies to new designs submitted from the end of 2017 (2020 for smaller aircraft) and is 7 dB stricter, added up over three measuring points, than the one before. Older, louder types can stay in service for many years, so the mix at your airport changes slowly.

The airline also decides how the plane is flown within the procedures, such as whether it descends continuously on the way in rather than in steps, and when its flights are timetabled. Heathrow's Fly Quieter and Greener programme encourages airlines to use quieter aircraft and fly them more quietly; in 2025, 90% of its arrivals flew a continuous descent.

Air traffic control: the path on the day

Air traffic controllers decide the exact path of each flight, within the published routes and their safety rules. They can:

• Steer planes off the usual route, for example around storms. At Heathrow in 2025, NATS controllers turned some departures off their routes for exactly that reason.
• Hold arrivals in stacks when the airport is busy, which is why planes circle over some areas.
• Change the runway pattern for the day. At Heathrow, when arrivals are badly delayed, controllers may land some planes on the departure runway after 07:00.

In the UK, NATS manages all the upper airspace and provides air traffic control at 15 airports, including Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Stansted. It also runs the new UK Airspace Design Service, which is starting with the redesign of the busy airspace around London. Other European countries each have their own air navigation service provider. In the US, the FAA is both the regulator and the air traffic controller; it describes itself as the only regulator of US airspace, and airports work with it when they want to change flight paths for noise reasons.

Controllers' first duty is safety, and on a busy day that will always come before noise.

Governments and regulators: the rules everyone works within

The biggest decisions about noise are made by governments and regulators:

• Night flights. At Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted the Department for Transport sets the night limits; the current rules run from October 2025. At other UK airports, the CAA says, operating hours and noise limits are often part of the planning permission, set by the council or the government. Our guide to night flight rules explains the different kinds.
• Flight paths. In the UK, permanent changes go through the CAA's airspace change process: the sponsor (an airport, an air traffic provider, or the UK Airspace Design Service where several airports share the airspace) designs the change and consults, and the CAA decides. The government tells the CAA how to weigh noise through its Air Navigation Guidance. The edition that applies from 1 October 2026 puts safety first, then the flights that planning decisions allow, then keeping the noise from planes below 5,000 ft over the areas that already hear it rather than moving it, then minimising the total noise below that height.
• Expansion. New runways and big increases in flights need planning permission, from the council or, for the largest projects, the government.
• Aircraft standards. ICAO's standards are applied by national and European regulators such as the CAA, EASA and the FAA.

Some countries also have an independent noise authority. France's ACNUSA can fine airlines for breaking route and night rules at 15 airports. Ireland's Aircraft Noise Competent Authority regulates noise at Dublin Airport, although complaints still go to the airport.

Where to put your effort

For a single flight, the airport. For a pattern of flights, the airport and then the regulator. For the rules themselves, the moment they are being changed: a consultation on a new flight path, a noise action plan, a night flight decision or a planning application. That is when the organisations above have to show how they have taken residents' views into account, and our guide to responding to consultations explains how to make yours count.

It helps to know exactly what you are hearing and why: which runway direction brings planes over your home, how many and at what height, and how many at night.