The European Parliament approved new rules governing decisions on how best to protect local residents against aircraft noise and allocate take-off and landing fairly and flexibly. However the proposal to further increase competition among groundhandling service suppliers at key airports was referred back to the Transport and Tourism Committee for further discussion.

MEPs approved in plenary session the new rules governing decisions on how best to protect local residents against aircraft noise and allocate take-off and landing fairly and flexibly. On the other hand, Parliament asked the Transport Committee to pursue its work on the Commission's proposal on groundhandling services. MEPs therefore did not follow the Transport Committee suggestion of rejecting such  Commission's proposal.

With regard to the new rules on how best to protect local residents against aircraft noise, MEPs approved that specific noise abatement objectives will have to be set for each airport, but common rules will have to be followed to achieve them. In June 2012, the Council reached an agreement to revise EU rules on airport noise. MEPs also inserted a requirement that they take account of health, economic and social aspects and follow the "balanced approach" established by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), to enable local authorities to choose the most cost-effective noise mitigation measures.

Parliament also approved landing and take-off slot allocation and exchange rules (secondary trading) designed to ensure that unused slots are made available to interested operators as soon as possible and in a transparent way, but without prejudice to connections between regional airports and major hubs.