Community Corner

Patch Poll: Noise After New JFK Flight Patterns?

Have you noticed more or less noise since the FAA changed flight patterns over Nassau County Thursday?

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) implemented the second stage of its plan to redesign the airspace over New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia Thursday, increasing the amount of planes flying over Nassau County.

An additional fifth departure route for westbound flights leaving the New York metro area was added Oct. 20 to augment four existing westbound departure routes.

"The new route will allow planes leaving all of the New York area airports to access westbound high altitude routes more quickly and will help relieve current traffic management restrictions that cause delays," according to a fact sheet posted on the FAA website.

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On Thursday, the FAA also began using a new departure procedure at John F. Kennedy International Airport called the "JFK Wrap," which it says allows flights headed westbound from JFK to exit the New York area more efficiently and quickly.

"Before the new procedure was available, aircraft that filed flight plans for high altitude, westbound routes had to converge over a single point in Robbinsville, NJ before they were fanned out on separate routes," creating a choke point that caused grond delays at New York area airports during peak traffic periods, the release stated.

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Under the new “JFK Wrap” procedure, after taking off from the airport, west-bound flights will first follow a path to the east and then will turn to the north and then to the west, across New Jersey. When they reach northwestern New Jersey, the flights will be directed to multiple points to access the National Airspace System’s high-altitude, west-bound route structure, flying around 20,000 feet.

Laurence Quinn, chair of Garden City's Environmental Advisory Board (EAB), said Thursday that departures "rarely directly affect" village residents like approaches do.

He advised that at Monday's Town-Village Aircraft Safety & Noise Abatement Committee (TVASNAC) meeting at *Lawrence High School FAA and Port Authority officials are expected to discuss a revised noise abatement procedure.

"We don't know what it is and judging by the amount of cooperation we've gotten from them I don't know if it's necessarily what we want to hear," Quinn said. "There should be a lot of potential fireworks available at that meeting. Hopefully we'll be able to share some good news at the EAB meeting [scheduled for Nov. 30, according to village website]. There's lots of potential things happening but not necessarily all favorable. But we won't know until we hear it from the horse's mouth."

EAB members have been consistent in their fight for a more equitable distribution of overflights. Runway 22L into JFK, which flies over Garden City, has seen an increase in traffic from 14.5 percent in 2004 to 29.2 percent in 2011, based on official data.

Area residents have consistently pushed the FAA to (1) distinguish noise levels between the manual and instrument-guided landing approach, (2) enforce aircraft to maintain higher altitudes over villages and (3) punish pilots who break altitude regulations. Many say lack of meaningful communication remains the primary problem between the various communities and air traffic officials.

Garden City resident Gina Fornasar, an EAB member, had her daughter, Julia, speak at the July TVASNAC meeting about how aircraft noise has affected her life.

“I wake up early at night because the noise from the airplanes comes so low … and when I get to school I fall asleep at my desk,” Julia said.

The FAA says an environmental analysis it conducted showed that the routing changes from New York to New Jersey will not create any new significant noise impacts in the area, including the portion of the route that flies over Nassau County shortly after departure from JFK.

But we want to hear what local residents are actually experiencing. Have you noticed a change in air traffic since the new flight plans and departure procedure was implemented Thursday? Has the noise increased, decreased or remained the same? Vote or comment below.

*Lawrence High School is located at 21 Reilly Road in Cedarhurst.


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