1.The competent authorities shall ensure that the noise situation at airports for which they are responsible is assessed on a regular basis, in accordance with Directive 2002/49/EC and the legislation applicable within each Member State. The competent authorities may call on the support of the Performance Review Body referred to in Article 3 of Commission Regulation (EU) No 691/2010(1).
2.If the assessment referred to in paragraph 1 indicates that new operating restriction measures may be required to address a noise problem at an airport, the competent authorities shall ensure that:
(a)the method, indicators and information in Annex I are applied in such a way as to take due account of the contribution of each type of measure under the Balanced Approach, before operating restrictions are introduced;
(b)at the appropriate level, technical cooperation is established between the airport operators, aircraft operators and air navigation service providers to examine measures to mitigate noise. The competent authorities shall also ensure that local residents, or their representatives, and relevant local authorities are consulted, and that technical information on noise mitigation measures is provided to them;
(c)the cost-effectiveness of any new operating restriction is assessed, in accordance with Annex II. Minor technical amendments to measures without substantive implications on capacity or operations shall not be considered new operating restrictions;
(d)the process of consultation with interested parties, which may take the form of a mediation process, is organised in a timely and substantive manner, ensuring openness and transparency as regards data and computation methodologies. Interested parties shall have at least three months prior to the adoption of the new operating restrictions to submit comments. The interested parties shall include at least:
local residents living in the vicinity of the airport and affected by air traffic noise, or their representatives, and the relevant local authorities;
representatives of local businesses based in the vicinity of the airport, whose activities are affected by air traffic and the operation of the airport;
relevant airport operators;
representatives of those aircraft operators which may be affected by noise-related actions;
the relevant air navigation service providers;
the Network Manager, as defined in Commission Regulation (EU) No 677/2011(2);
where applicable, the designated slots coordinator.
3.The competent authorities shall follow up and monitor the implementation of the operating restrictions and take action as appropriate. They shall ensure that relevant information is made available free of charge and that it is readily and promptly accessible to local residents living in the vicinity of the airports and to the relevant local authorities.
4.The relevant information may include:
(a)while respecting national law, information on alleged infringements due to changes in flight procedures, in terms of their impact and the reasons why such changes were made;
(b)the general criteria applied when distributing and managing traffic in each airport, to the extent that those criteria may have an environmental or noise impact; and
(c)data collected by noise measuring systems, if available.
Commission Regulation (EU) No 691/2010 of 29 July 2010 laying down a performance scheme for air navigation services and network functions and amending Regulation (EC) No 2096/2005 laying down common requirements for the provision of air navigation services (OJ L 201, 3.8.2010, p. 1).
Commission Regulation (EU) No 677/2011 of 7 July 2011 laying down detailed rules for the implementation of air traffic management (ATM) network functions and amending Regulation (EU) No 691/2010 (OJ L 185, 15.7.2011, p. 1).