Social Costs of Aircraft Noise and Engine Emissions: Case Study of Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport

With the increasing trend of charging for externalities and the aim of encouraging the sustainable development of the air transport industry, there is a need to evaluate the real social costs of the undesirable side effects of aircraft noise and engine emissions. The mathematical models, based on extensive literature reviews of existing externality measurements, are developed to derive the social costs of noise and engine emissions from aircraft movements in monetary terms by using Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport as a case study. Furthermore, the results of a survey on the current noise and engine emissions charges are briefly described and compared. The hedonic price method is applied to calculate the annual social cost of aircraft noise during the landing and takeoff stages of the flight. In contrast, the direct evaluation method is applied to estimate the social cost of each engine exhaust pollutant during different flight modes. The empirical results have shown that the average social cost of noise per aircraft landing at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport is similar to that of emissions, assuming a 30-min cruise time to landing or after takeoff. However, the uncertainty in the estimation of social costs for emissions is higher than that for noise, mainly because of the unknown effects of the exhaust pollutants on the upper atmosphere and on the climate.