Photo credit: Bill Abbott licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
by David N. Sykes, Vice Chair, The Quiet Coalition
Congresswoman Jackie Speier, who is featured in this Curbed article, is one of 16 members of California’s Congressional delegation who are actively involved in the 47-member Congressional Quiet Skies Caucus. Her San Francisco constituents have a strong chapter of the the Caucus’s regional support network, The National Quiet Skies Coalition, which has chapters in nearly two dozen states.
Last year, the 50 members of Congress who sit on the Congressional Quiet Skies Caucus thought they’d achieved meaningful change when they succeeded in getting specific noise-control requirements in the Federal Aviation Administration Reauuthorization Act of 2018, which was signed into law in October 2018. Sadly, the FAA doesn’t appear to be taking congress very seriously, as most communities near major U.S. airports have still not gotten any relief.
What’s insightful about the article above is that Congresswoman Speier is pressing for further changes—such as fines against airlines if they land planes during certain night-time hours. Few Americans know that there’s a global United Nations agency called the International Civil Aviation Organization, which is based in Montreal Canada. ICAO has regulatory authority over such matters as how much money can be levied as fines for noisy operation. This tactic used at the local level could help communities get the quieter conditions they yearn for, and the sleep they need.
If nothing else, fining airlines for noisy aircraft could stimulate those airlines to do what 50 airlines around the world have already done: purchase quieter aircraft–such as the 70% quieter Airbus A320neo when equipped with the American-made Pratt & Whitney “Geared Turbofan” engine.
We have no financial ties to airlines or aircraft manufacturers, but it seems essential to us for Americans to realize that quieter jet aircraft exist and are already flying safely around the world—but that only a couple of U.S. airlines have bought them. Why? Don’t we deserve quieter airports here in America too? Why do America’s airlines continue to buy noisy aircraft when quieter and more fuel-efficient alternatives already exist?
