Why is there so much aircraft noise over Freising and Attaching?

Munich Airport's two parallel 4,000 m runways run east–west, and their western extensions point straight at the Freising area. Attaching sits directly beside the western end of the northern runway (08L/26R), and Freising's built-up area lies along the same corridor. Because winds are predominantly westerly, departures roll west toward Freising and Attaching for most of the year. The Attaching monitoring station records among the highest values in the airport's fixed measuring network.

Which towns near Munich Airport are quietest?

The pattern is a long east–west band. Towns on the centrelines — Attaching, Schwaig, Hallbergmoos, Eitting, and Freising's southern districts — see the most traffic. Places offset north or south of the corridors, like Moosinning/Eichenried to the south-east or Eching further west, are overflown mainly by higher, turning aircraft. Use the pin-drop tool on the map above to check any specific address.

What happened to Munich Airport's third runway?

The third runway is fully approved — planning permission was confirmed by the Bavarian Administrative Court in 2014 — but it has been politically frozen since Munich's 2012 citizens' referendum, in which about 54% voted against it. The plan would effectively erase the village of Attaching, which is why local opposition remains intense. The airport currently operates on its two existing runways with no construction underway.

Which runway do arrivals into Munich use?

Both parallel runways are used simultaneously in mixed mode, with a rough directional split — the northern runway (08L/26R) usually serves flights to and from the north, the southern (08R/26L) flights to and from the south. Westerly operations dominate over the year, meaning arrivals descend from the east over Eitting, Berglern and Erding onto runways 26L/26R, while departures head west over Freising, Attaching, Hallbergmoos and Neufahrn.

Are there flights at Munich Airport at night?

Very few. Between midnight and 5 AM only mail flights, air-traffic-control survey flights and emergency or specially approved operations are allowed. In the shoulder hours (10 PM – midnight, 5 – 6 AM) only quieter certified aircraft may fly, capped at 28 scheduled or charter movements per night, and a noise quota limits the total night noise energy. See the curfew section above for the full rules.

How do I complain about aircraft noise from Munich Airport?

Flughafen München GmbH runs a noise complaint line and online portal (munich-airport.de/laermschutz). Complaints can be escalated to the aircraft-noise protection officer (Fluglärmschutzbeauftragter) at the Regierung von Oberbayern, the district government that approved and supervises the night-flight rules. There is also a neighborhood advisory board (Nachbarschaftsbeirat) where affected municipalities are represented.

Is Munich Airport the same as the old Munich-Riem airport?

No. Munich-Riem, close to the city, closed in May 1992 when all operations moved to the current airport in the Erdinger Moos, about 28.5 km north-east of Munich. The move was made partly to take jet noise away from the city — the trade-off is that the noise now falls on smaller towns in the Freising and Erding districts instead.

Does the map above show all traffic at MUC?

Effectively yes — Munich's commercial fleet has near-complete ADS-B transponder coverage, so the heatmap and route-density layers reflect the real east–west corridor pattern. A small amount of light general-aviation traffic in the wider region may be missing, but it is not a meaningful part of the noise picture around the airport.

Munich Flight Path Noise Map – Munich Airport (MUC)

Name: Aircraft noise observations near Munich Airport
Creator: Flight Path Noise
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Aircraft noise around Munich in October 2026

Loudest neighborhoods near Munich: Attaching (Freising), Schwaig (Oberding), Freising, Hallbergmoos, Eitting. Quietest: Moosinning / Eichenried, Eching, Fahrenzhausen. Busiest around 1 PM local time averaging 1064 flights/day. Source: Flight Path Noise monitoring data, 30 days to 2026-10-19.

Flights by hour · last 30 days

12a6a12p6p

Average daily traffic

1064

flights / day · 31,927 total

Busiest hour

1 PM

peak 95 dB

Loudest hour

1 PM

peak 95 dB

Loudest residential area

Hallbergmoos

65 dB avg · ~956 flights/day · Office noise

Close-in town south-west of the field; its Goldach district sits near the southern runway's western extension (westerly departures, easterly arrivals)

Does Munich Airport have a curfew?

Yes — a mandatory night ban; no scheduled flights roughly 11:30 PM – 5:30 AM, with capped late-evening and early-morning shoulders.

Munich runs one of Germany’s stricter legally binding night regimes, approved by the District Government of Upper Bavaria and in force since March 2001, covering the whole 10 PM – 6 AM window. In the core night from midnight to 5 AM, only mail flights, German air-traffic-control survey flights and emergency or individually approved operations are permitted; in addition, no scheduled flights operate in principle between 11:30 PM and midnight or between 5 and 5:30 AM — so scheduled traffic effectively stops from roughly 11:30 PM to 5:30 AM. In the remaining shoulder hours only quieter aircraft meeting federal “bonus list” noise-certification standards may fly, capped at 28 scheduled or charter movements per night. On top of the movement caps sits a night noise quota — the energy-equivalent level may not exceed 50 dB(A) at measuring points on the day/night protection-zone boundary on an average night. It is a legal restriction, not a voluntary program.

Munich Airport’s noise story is defined by geography and a referendum. Opened in 1992 in the Erdinger Moos wetland — built there precisely to move jet noise away from Munich, 28.5 km to the south-west — it instead concentrated that noise on small Bavarian towns. Freising, Attaching, Hallbergmoos, Schwaig and Eitting sit under the east–west corridors of two 4,000 m parallel runways. Night operations run under one of Germany’s stricter legally binding regimes, with a core night (midnight – 5 AM) closed to all but mail, survey and emergency flights. And looming over everything is the third runway — approved by courts up to the Bavarian Administrative Court, yet frozen since Munich’s 2012 citizens’ referendum, because building it would effectively erase the village of Attaching.

Which neighborhoods are quietest — and which aren’t

Munich operates two parallel east–west runways, 08L/26R (northern) and 08R/26L (southern), each 4,000 m long and 60 m wide. Both are used simultaneously in mixed mode, so the noise footprint is a long east–west band roughly 2 km wide on each side of the field, stretching from Neufahrn and Fahrenzhausen in the west to Berglern and Erding in the east.

Area	Aircraft noise	Why
Attaching (Freising)	✈︎✈︎✈︎	Directly beside the northern runway’s western end; highest measured noise in the region
Schwaig (Oberding)	✈︎✈︎✈︎	Under the southern runway’s eastern extension
Freising	✈︎✈︎✈︎	Nearest city; along the northern runway’s western corridor
Hallbergmoos	✈︎✈︎✈︎	Near the southern runway’s western extension
Eitting	✈︎✈︎✈︎	Under eastern finals to 26L/26R in the dominant westerly regime
Achering (Freising)	✈︎✈︎	Close to the northern runway’s extended centreline, west side
Pulling (Freising)	✈︎✈︎	Under the northern runway’s westerly departure fan
Berglern	✈︎✈︎	On the eastern approach to 26R, ~13 km out
Marzling	✈︎✈︎	Skirted by turning departures rather than on the centreline
Neufahrn bei Freising	✈︎✈︎	Near the southern runway’s western corridor
Erding	✈︎✈︎	Northern edge near the southern runway’s eastern corridor
Moosinning / Eichenried	✈︎	Offset south of the corridors; higher, turning traffic only
Eching	✈︎	Further west; aircraft higher and mostly offset
Fahrenzhausen	✈︎	Under westerly departures but at altitude

The practical rule around MUC is offset, not distance. Erding’s town centre, 10 km out, does better than Attaching at 4 km because it sits south of the direct centreline; Eitting at 8 km does worse than Eching at 14 km because it is exactly under final approach. If you are house-hunting anywhere in the Freising or Erding districts, drop a pin on the map above — a kilometre or two sideways off the corridor makes a bigger difference than five kilometres along it.

Flight patterns and runway use

Both runways point 08/26 (east–west) and are worked in mixed mode — arrivals and departures on each — with a directional split: the northern runway generally handles flights to and from the north, the southern runway flights to and from the south.

Wind decides the direction. Prevailing winds are westerly, so westerly operations dominate over the year: aircraft land toward the west on runways 26L and 26R, descending over Berglern, Eitting and Erding’s northern edge on final, while departures roll west and climb out over Freising, Attaching, Hallbergmoos and Neufahrn. In easterly winds the whole pattern reverses — arrivals come in over the Freising side and departures head out east over the Erdinger Moos.

Noise abatement is built into the night procedures. Dedicated noise-protection night departure routes apply to most aircraft between 10 PM and 6 AM, quieter continuous-descent-style approaches are encouraged at night, and an annual night noise quota is tied to a 50 dB(A) Leq limit at the day/night protection-zone boundary. Compliance is tracked by a network of fixed monitoring stations around the field — the Attaching station consistently records among the highest values, which is a fair one-line summary of who bears the burden here.

The route-density layer on the map above makes the geometry obvious: two bright parallel lines running east–west, a fan of departure tracks spreading north and south a few kilometres out, and very little traffic over Munich city itself — the 1992 move did achieve that much.

When is it quietest?

Munich’s night regime gives residents a genuinely protected core night, which is unusual for an airport of this size:

Core night (midnight – 5 AM): closed to all but mail flights, air-traffic-control survey flights and emergencies. For practical purposes, silence.
10 PM – midnight and 5 – 6 AM: restricted shoulder hours — only quieter “bonus list” aircraft, capped at 28 scheduled or charter movements per night, with no scheduled flights in principle between 11:30 PM – midnight and 5 – 5:30 AM.
6 – 8 AM: the morning departure bank — the loudest stretch of the day for the westerly departure towns (Freising, Attaching, Hallbergmoos) as the overnight fleet leaves.
Midday: sustained hub traffic in arrival and departure waves, typical of a major transfer airport.
Evening (6 – 10 PM): heavy arrival banks, then a taper as the schedule squeezes in ahead of the 10 PM restrictions.

The other big variable is wind direction. A switch to easterly operations moves final-approach noise from Eitting and Berglern over to the Freising side, and departure noise from Freising over to Erding’s northern edge — the same corridors, mirrored.

How to check noise at your specific address

The map above answers “how loud is this spot?” in three steps:

Search your address or postcode in the bar at the bottom of the map.
Drop a pin on the exact location.
Read the noise report in the sidebar: average daily noise (Leq), peak observed dB, flights per day within 2 km, and an hourly breakdown.

The Noise Heatmap layer (orange/red = louder) and the Route Density layer (purple/magenta = busier corridors) show the east–west band clearly. Anywhere in Freising, Hallbergmoos, Oberding, Eitting or Erding, the pin-drop check is worth doing street by street — exposure changes sharply with sideways offset from the centrelines. And whatever the daytime reading, the core night closure means the hours from midnight to 5 AM stay quiet.

Frequently asked questions

Why is there so much aircraft noise over Freising and Attaching?: Munich Airport's two parallel 4,000 m runways run east–west, and their western extensions point straight at the Freising area. Attaching sits directly beside the western end of the northern runway (08L/26R), and Freising's built-up area lies along the same corridor. Because winds are predominantly westerly, departures roll west toward Freising and Attaching for most of the year. The Attaching monitoring station records among the highest values in the airport's fixed measuring network.
Which towns near Munich Airport are quietest?: The pattern is a long east–west band. Towns on the centrelines — Attaching, Schwaig, Hallbergmoos, Eitting, and Freising's southern districts — see the most traffic. Places offset north or south of the corridors, like Moosinning/Eichenried to the south-east or Eching further west, are overflown mainly by higher, turning aircraft. Use the pin-drop tool on the map above to check any specific address.
What happened to Munich Airport's third runway?: The third runway is fully approved — planning permission was confirmed by the Bavarian Administrative Court in 2014 — but it has been politically frozen since Munich's 2012 citizens' referendum, in which about 54% voted against it. The plan would effectively erase the village of Attaching, which is why local opposition remains intense. The airport currently operates on its two existing runways with no construction underway.
Which runway do arrivals into Munich use?: Both parallel runways are used simultaneously in mixed mode, with a rough directional split — the northern runway (08L/26R) usually serves flights to and from the north, the southern (08R/26L) flights to and from the south. Westerly operations dominate over the year, meaning arrivals descend from the east over Eitting, Berglern and Erding onto runways 26L/26R, while departures head west over Freising, Attaching, Hallbergmoos and Neufahrn.
Are there flights at Munich Airport at night?: Very few. Between midnight and 5 AM only mail flights, air-traffic-control survey flights and emergency or specially approved operations are allowed. In the shoulder hours (10 PM – midnight, 5 – 6 AM) only quieter certified aircraft may fly, capped at 28 scheduled or charter movements per night, and a noise quota limits the total night noise energy. See the curfew section above for the full rules.
How do I complain about aircraft noise from Munich Airport?: Flughafen München GmbH runs a noise complaint line and online portal (munich-airport.de/laermschutz). Complaints can be escalated to the aircraft-noise protection officer (Fluglärmschutzbeauftragter) at the Regierung von Oberbayern, the district government that approved and supervises the night-flight rules. There is also a neighborhood advisory board (Nachbarschaftsbeirat) where affected municipalities are represented.
Is Munich Airport the same as the old Munich-Riem airport?: No. Munich-Riem, close to the city, closed in May 1992 when all operations moved to the current airport in the Erdinger Moos, about 28.5 km north-east of Munich. The move was made partly to take jet noise away from the city — the trade-off is that the noise now falls on smaller towns in the Freising and Erding districts instead.
Does the map above show all traffic at MUC?: Effectively yes — Munich's commercial fleet has near-complete ADS-B transponder coverage, so the heatmap and route-density layers reflect the real east–west corridor pattern. A small amount of light general-aviation traffic in the wider region may be missing, but it is not a meaningful part of the noise picture around the airport.

Sources and further reading

Night flight — strict rules for a quiet sleep — Flughafen München GmbH (Munich Airport)
Munich Airport — Wikipedia
Fluglärm — Einreichung einer Beschwerde — Regierung von Oberbayern
Munich Airport's third runway — a "perpetual building right" under judicial review — Aviation.Direct
A brief guide to night flight restrictions at Germany's major airports — Simple Flying
Nachbarschaftsbeirat Flughafen München — Flughafen München GmbH

Data updated 2026-10-19 — live ADS-B monitoring, rolling 30-day statistics (methodology). Article text revised 2026-07-17.

30 dB	Whisper
45 dB	Quiet residential
55 dB	Normal conversation
65 dB	Busy road
75 dB	Vacuum cleaner
85 dB	Heavy traffic
95 dB	Motorcycle nearby

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Munich Flight Path Noise Map – Munich Airport (MUC)

Aircraft noise around Munich in October 2026

Does Munich Airport have a curfew?

Which neighborhoods are quietest — and which aren’t

Flight patterns and runway use

When is it quietest?

How to check noise at your specific address

Frequently asked questions

Sources and further reading

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