FAA Responds to Call of Lawmakers to Mitigate Noise Impacts

More effective flight path structures can have the unintended consequence of compounding noise concerns.

Michael Wildes

Friday, March 18, 2022 at 05:00 PM ET

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According to the FAA, noise exposure in the past half-century has decreased five-fold. [File Photo: Shutterstock]

Key Takeaways:

The FAA's NextGen air traffic modernization, while creating more efficient flight paths, unexpectedly increased aircraft noise over communities, leading to significant public backlash, lawsuits, and calls from lawmakers for more proactive engagement.
FAA officials acknowledge that successfully addressing aviation noise requires extensive collaboration among all stakeholders, including airlines, airports, manufacturers, and affected communities, as the agency cannot solve the problem alone.
Despite past reductions in individual aircraft noise due to technological advancements, the FAA is now focused on improving community outreach, establishing an online noise reporting portal, and investing in research to better understand and mitigate noise impacts, including re-evaluating current noise exposure thresholds.

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As the FAA began implementing its NextGen efforts to modernize the national air traffic control system, they discovered that in some cases, the more effective flight paths lead to more noise over communities. That forced the agency to deal with disgruntled citizens, non-partisan accountability agencies, and litigious communities, so much so that now lawmakers want the FAA to be more proactive before things escalate.

On Thursday, FAA officials told legislators that the agency was taking steps toward reducing the impact of aircraft noise exposure.