Heathrow Airport has today named the noisiest and dirtiest airlines with the Middle Eastern planes coming last while British Airways‘ short-haul fleet is the cleanest.

For the first time, the west London airport – the busiest in Europe – has said almost half of airlines are violating at least one of the targets designed to improve their performance.

Its list called the Fly Quiet and Clean League Table will be published every three months in a bid to try and get airlines to use more efficient planes at the airport.

Initial information has shown that British Airways short haul, Irish airline Aer Lingus and Etihad Airways from the UAE are both the cleanest and quietest airlines.

Meanwhile, El Al, the flag carrier for Israel, came in the last position out of the 50 largest airlines which fly in and out of Heathrow.

The airport analysed seven measures which included noise, nitrogen oxides emissions, whether they were late or early and efficient landing approaches.

Its data – based on flights from January and March – highlighted 24 of the 50 airlines were failing in at least one of them and received a red mark next to its name.

The five worst-performing airlines after El Al were Kuwait Airways, Middle East Airlines, Pakistan International Airlines, Omar Air and Jet Airways.

British Airways’ short-haul operation was rated the best airline receiving a ‘green’ rating for six of the seven noise and emissions criteria.

The airport, which is the third busiest in the world after handling a record 75.7million passengers in 2016, will publish the league table every three months.

Its new move will be ‘name and shame’ the airports which cause the most pollution to encourage them to make improvements when landing in the capital.

The league table is part of Heathrow’s plan to be one of the world-leading airports when it comes to reducing emissions.

Matt Gorman, Heathrow Director of Sustainability, said: ‘While the main contributor to local pollution remains road traffic, Heathrow is playing its part to improve air quality by reducing emissions from its vehicles, buildings, and aircraft.

‘We are excited to add a whole new dimension to the league table and have another tool to help airlines to reduce their impact on air quality.

‘Together, we can play our part to improve our local environment and help the UK and London governments meet their air quality targets.’