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 modernization, while optimizing flight paths, unexpectedly led to increased aircraft noise over communities, prompting significant backlash, lawsuits, and calls from lawmakers for more proactive engagement.
The FAA acknowledges these noise challenges and is implementing measures to address them, emphasizing that effective solutions require broad collaboration among aviation stakeholders, local governments, and affected communities.
Despite significant reductions in noise from individual aircraft over the past decades, the concentration and higher frequency of quieter flights over specific areas have intensified community noise concerns.
The agency plans to improve its approach through enhanced community outreach, a new online noise reporting portal, and further research into noise impact and thresholds, addressing past failures in community consultation.

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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.