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, inadvertently increased concentrated aircraft noise over specific communities, leading to public backlash, lawsuits, and calls from lawmakers for more proactive engagement.
The FAA acknowledges that successfully addressing aircraft noise requires extensive collaboration among various stakeholders, including airlines, airports, manufacturers, and local governments, as the agency cannot solve it alone.
In response to past issues with community engagement, the FAA is implementing proactive measures such as improving community outreach through regional teams, launching an online noise complaint portal, and investing in research to better understand and mitigate noise impacts.

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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.