ASA Adjudication on Boeing United Kingdom Ltd

Ad

A magazine ad, for the Boeing 787 airliner, stated "... Boeing and QinetiQ are testing cutting-edge aerodynamic designs that will allow the new 787 to ... fly 60% quieter than ever before".

Issue

The complainant challenged whether the claim "60% quieter than ever before" was misleading and whether it could be substantiated, because he believed the claim referred to the noise footprint of the aircraft and not to the peak sound level.  

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

Boeing said the 787 had been designed as a replacement for the 767 family of Boeing aircraft and the comparison in the ad was therefore with the 767.  

Boeing said there were various different ways of measuring noise made by aircraft.  However, they said the calculation of the 'noise footprint' of an aircraft, or airport, was the methodology consistently used by Boeing, its competitors, industry regulators and community groups, to describe aircraft noise and they had therefore used that methodology to calculate that the 787 was 60% quieter than ever before.   They said the noise footprint of an aircraft showed the geographical area within which the aircraft produced noise at any given level and therefore it demonstrated the impact of any given aircraft on communities that lived near to airports.  Boeing provided several documents, which demonstrated that a variety of different stakeholders within the aviation industry used the noise footprint methodology.  

Boeing said they were unaware of any method that used the 'peak sound level' measurement that resulted in a claim that would be understood by the general public.  They said the 'peak sound level' was the amount of noise made by an aircraft as measured from one particular place.  They said the noise levels measured at any given place would vary substantially depending on a number of extraneous factors such as cloud cover, humidity, wind direction and wind speed.  They said different measurements would also be produced at every different location from which the peak sound was measured.  For example, a reading taken on one day from a point under the flight path on the approach to Heathrow airport might give a peak sound level of 110dBA for a 747, but changes in climatic conditions the following day might give a peak level of 100dBA for the same aircraft.  They said, nevertheless, that even if the difference in peak sound level between the 767 and the 787 was measured the reduction was 4.5dBA.  They pointed out that the major London airports used a 3dBA difference to support a 50% noise reduction and therefore their claim was also supported if measured in that way.

Boeing said, however, that neither aircraft manufacturers nor airlines reported data to regulators or airport operators in 'peak sound level' terms and consistent, comparable readings for different aircraft would be very difficult to produce given that the climatic conditions would inevitably change between one reading and the next.  Boeing believed, therefore, that a peak sound level' comparison would have misled the general public.  They said the current lack of a meaningful method of calculating percentage based peak level noise comparisons explained why the noise footprint methodology instead was routinely used throughout the aviation industry.  

Boeing said the industry standard method for calculating noise footprints used by Boeing and its competitors was the Federal Aviation Authority Integrated Noise Model (INM).  They said the methodology took into account the characteristics of an aircraft such as its weight, thrust and engine type.  They said the INM calculated that the noise footprint at 85dBA for the 767 was a total area of 1.9 square miles, whereas the 787 was 0.7 square miles.  Therefore, the 787 noise footprint was 63% smaller than the 767 and the noise emitted by the 787 would affect a geographic area that was 60% smaller than that affected by the comparator aircraft.  

Boeing said the ad was designed to focus on the overall community benefits of the new technology and they considered that if 60% fewer people were exposed to noise at a certain level then that would commonly be understood by the public as being "60% quieter".

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA noted Boeing had based the claim on the reduction of the noise footprint of their 787 aircraft, compared with their 767 model.  We understood from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) that the INM was a recognised and commonly used model for calculating the noise footprint of an aircraft and we therefore considered that Boeing had substantiated the claim.

We noted Boeing had based the claim on a measurement of the noise footprint of the aircraft rather than the peak sound level, because they considered that there was no meaningful way of reporting peak sound level reductions in percentage terms. We noted Boeing had nevertheless also calculated that the reduction in peak sound level for the 787 was equivalent to around 60%.  However, we understood from the CAA that the measurement of a 3dBA decrease as a 50% reduction in noise level, which was used by the London airports, was in fact a barely perceptible difference and therefore the typical noise level reductions for some people within the noise footprint of the aircraft would only be just discernible.

We understood from the CAA that reductions in noise footprint area were conceptually very different from reductions in noise exposure experienced by individuals. We considered that, without qualification, the claim "60% quieter" was ambiguous and that readers were unlikely to understand that the claim was based on a reduction of the noise area of the aircraft.  We considered that the ad should have made that basis of the claim clear and because it did not we concluded it was likely to mislead.    

The ad breached CAP Code clause 7.1 (Truthfulness), 19.1 (Other comparisons) and 49.1 (Environmental claims).  

We also investigated the ad under 3.1 (Substantiation) but did not find it in breach.

Action

We told Boeing to make the basis of the calculation clear when making percentage noise reduction claims in future.  For their future ads we advised them to seek guidance from the CAP Copy Advice team.  

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)