FAA NextGen: Myth vs. Reality

There’s so much conflicting information floating around about NextGen from multiple sources that it can be difficult to tell fact from fiction. The FAA, perhaps on the defensive with more and more Members of Congress demanding answers, has stepped up its media campaign touting all the amazing benefits of NextGen. In response to the FAA’s NextGen media offensive, it’s probably a good time to take a step back and start separating myth from reality, and blanket statements from nuance.

Myth #1:

NextGen Has Reduced Noise Impacts Across America.

Reality:

In a recently-released statement the FAA claimed that NextGen has done an amazing job of reducing noise pollution. NextGen didn’t “reduce” any noise – NextGen moved the noise all to the same areas, and then doubled-down on creating even more noise by allowing more airplanes in the sky over those areas. This isn’t a “reduction” in overall noise, it’s a concentration of noise in one area. No noise was reduced via NextGen – it was moved, and then it was expanded.

Reality:

Citizens living in metropolitan areas understand that they will be exposed to airplane traffic noise. It’s a reality and a fact of life that comes with choosing to live in a metropolitan area. The citizens asking for relief from NextGen are not asking the FAA to move all flights over someone else’s house – they are simply asking for a more equitable distribution of flights so that they can have some peace in their own homes without being subject to 18 hours a day of bombardment from air and noise pollution. Airports are an economic benefit to metropolitan areas, and those impacted by NextGen understand this – they are simply asking that if an airport is a shared benefit, it should also be a shared burden.

Myth #2:

The People Complaining About NextGen Are NIMBY’s Who Just Want This To Be Someone Else’s Problem.

Myth #3:

People Can’t Move Near Airports And Then Complain About Airplane Noise.

Reality:

This statement indicates a fundamental lack of understanding about what NextGen has actually done. Post-NextGen, communities 20, 30, and 40 miles from airports have been bombarded with constant airplane noise. NextGen brings airplanes into airports in flightpaths at far lower elevations that they used to fly, in a continuous stream for 18+ hours a day.

People who have been living in their homes for 30+ years who only heard the occasional plane woke up one morning to suddenly not being able to open their windows due to constant air and noise pollution. These people didn’t “move” near an airport – the FAA decided to make their home part of the runway, with no notice or warning.

Reality:

This particular claim from the FAA would almost be comical, if the impacts of NextGen weren’t devastating communities across the country. In response to community complaints about NextGen, the FAA has claimed that it would be unfair to start moving flightpaths that would create noise in other areas that didn’t previously experience it.

But isn’t that exactly what the FAA did with NextGen? Create unbearable noise in communities that didn’t previously experience such noise? Why would it now be “unfair” to adjust flightpaths? This particular argument from the FAA is maddening in its double-speak and hypocrisy. You either care about creating new noise where it previously didn’t exist, or you don’t. But you don’t get to claim that argument when your actions don’t reflect its truth.

Myth #4:

The FAA Claims That It Would Be Unfair To Change NextGen Flightpaths Because It Would Expose People To Noise That Hadn’t Previously Been Experiencing It.

Myth #5:

The Increase In Noise Complaints Is Just The Result Of A Few Hypersensitive Individuals.

Reality:

Here are some of the data points around increases in noise complaints:

  • Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport tallied fewer than 25 noise complaints from 2010 -2014. When NextGen changed flight paths in 2014, that number jumped to over 2,500. In 2015, complaints increased to almost 12,000.
  • Prior to the implementation of NextGen, Baltimore-Washington International Airport received approximately 300 noise complaints a year. Recently, the Maryland Aviation Administration reported that citizens had filed 127,490 noise complaints in the second quarter alone of 2019.
  • In Medford, outside Boston’s Logan Airport, there were 5,210 complaints filed, for a total of 17,922 complaints filed across the greater Boston area in the first two months of 2019. In all of 2012, before NextGen, Medford residents filed 15 noise complaints.
  • Post NextGen, more than 81,000 noise complaints were filed about flights at Dulles and National in 2017 in the Washington, DC area, according to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, and more than 90 percent of those were linked to operations at National.
  • After NextGen was implemented, there was a massive 2,706% surge in airplane noise complaints in the San Francisco Bay Area.