COLUMN ONE : Roar of Jets Taking Off as U.S. Issue : Airport neighbors are demanding noise limits. With no nationwide policy, local fields are under a patchwork of rules that vary widely.
As an American Airlines 727 thundered above this subdivision six miles from Raleigh-Durham International Airport, Joyce Jordan looked toward the heavens and prayed for silence. “Why should we be subjected to this?” she asked.
The noise wasn’t this bad when Jordan and her husband, Dewitt, bought their home. When Raleigh-Durham became a hub in 1987, takeoff and landing patterns changed dramatically. Airliners now routinely roar over the tree-lined neighborhood of $200,000-to-$500,000 houses, and “For Sale” signs dot the avenues.
The Jordans would be selling as well, but “we aren’t sure we could get our money back,” Joyce Jordan says. “I wish we had known this before--we wouldn’t have bought here,” she adds.
The Jordans and many of their neighbors are barred from selling by the economics of the housing market, but they aren’t willing to give up. They have banded together to press local elected officials for restrictions on noise levels in the area.
“The town of Cary--that’s the body I want most to recognize this problem,” Jordan says. “They’re the ones who zoned this for residential uses in the first place.”
All over the nation, jet blast-plagued homeowners are organizing vocal campaigns to squelch, or at least dampen, the racket. And they are making enough noise to make the airline industry take notice.
“The issue of aircraft noise is a problem that we can no longer ignore,” Ronald W. Allen, chairman and chief executive of Delta Air Lines Inc., Atlanta, said in a recent speech. “Local noise restrictions are rapidly becoming a principal impediment to increasing airport and airway capacity.”
To be sure, the two sides aren’t on entirely different courses. Nearly everyone involved in aviation agrees that aircraft noise must be stifled. The debate centers on two issues--how best to muffle the racket and who should pay for doing it.
The major air carriers want the federal government to set noise standards for the 400 U.S. airports that receive regular commercial service. But the Bush Administration has been reluctant to go ahead with any such move, lest it open the way to thousands of lawsuits from disgruntled property owners.
Not surprisingly, with no nationwide policy to guide them, airports are setting up a patchwork of regulations that vary widely.
Los Angeles’ Department of Airports is calling for highly restrictive limits on aircraft noise. Under a plan drafted by Los Angeles International Airport officials and awaiting public hearings, airlines using the LAX and Ontario airports would have to limit their use of current-generation aircraft and phase them out entirely by Dec. 31, 1999.
Other regional airports in Southern California already strongly discourage the use of the noisier, older planes at their fields. In 1987, the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport became the first in the nation to serve only the newest, super-quiet generation of planes.
“We got in line early and made the move before the federal government got so upset on this issue,” said Victor Gill of the Burbank airport. “We didn’t ask the federal government’s approval.”
Southland Regulations
Long Beach, John Wayne in Orange County and San Diego’s Lindbergh Field have noise abatement policies limiting the number of flights, passenger volumes or carrier operating hours.
Transportation Department officials are not happy with the current situation. In the wake of the Los Angeles proposal, U.S. Transportation Secretary Samuel K. Skinner warned that Washington “cannot allow airports across the country to adopt (noise standards) willy-nilly.
“We have seen a proliferation of rules and regulations by local airport authorities all over the country, many of which are not consistent with each other and which are a very inhibiting factor on aviation traffic,” he said.
The Los Angeles move, however, has spurred the federal government to act. Partly to preempt the LAX ordinance, and to dissuade other airports from establishing noise rules of their own, Skinner now says he is considering a nationwide noise-abatement policy. Agency officials, however, concede that the timetable for that plan is uncertain.
Clifton Moore, executive director of LAX, said he is tired of Washington’s high-flying promises to impose a noise-abatement policy.
“They want to study this thing and keep on studying this thing for as long as possible,” he said. “The federal government ought to be able to take a position. If there were a national position (on noise-abatement), we would follow it. It’s the lack of a national policy that’s causing the problem.”
That problem isn’t an easy one to resolve. Current regulations classify commercial jetliners in three separate groupings, based on the noise they make taking off and landing.
The noisiest are the obsolete “Stage 1” planes--second-generation jetliners such as Boeing 707s and Douglas DC-8s, which have been banned from most airports and haven’t been built in more than 10 years.
Somewhat quieter are the slightly aging “Stage 2” aircraft--Boeing 727s, 737s and 747s.
Finally, there are the ultra-quiet “Stage 3” planes--the newer 737s, 747s, 757s and 767s, Lockheed L-1011s and European Airbuses.
Moore estimates that about 40% of the planes flying through LAX and Ontario International Airport are Stage 2 aircraft, a factor that leaves him incredulous that Washington would object to his barring the noisy planes.
“They’re saying to us: ‘Don’t you do anything to protect your citizens, and we won’t take a position because we might get sued,’ ” Moore says. “We just have a completely different point of view.”
Delta chief Allen agrees. While not necessarily endorsing the specifics of the LAX proposals, Allen contends that Washington must take charge of the noise issue or chaos will result.
“Unless we deal with it at the national level, our system will become strangled through non-uniform, uncoordinated and highly restrictive local rules,” he says.
Indeed, Allen recently scolded the Administration for failing to include noise abatement in its priorities for a new national transportation policy. He calls it “the most glaring omission in the Administration’s policy statement.”
Economic Factors
Compounding the dilemma over noise abatement are some analysts’ fears that too harsh a set of restrictions might cripple some airlines at a time when many carriers are already financially strapped.
Buying a new plane these days costs up to $45 million, well beyond the budget of many ailing carriers. Wealthy airlines such as American, Delta and United have placed large orders for the new planes and would have less trouble meeting noise-reduction plans. Their weaker sisters, notably Pan Am and Eastern, can barely afford to keep their fleets of Stage 2 planes flying. Buying quieter planes for them would be financially impossible, industry analysts say.
“If you’re an airline and you’re not taking acquisition of new aircraft, then you’re in trouble (if the federal government phases out Stage 2 planes),” said one airline executive who asked not to be named. “I’ve got to fly profitably these Stage 2 aircraft I’ve already got, otherwise I can’t afford to buy any Stage 3 planes. I’m not flying profitably now, so how can I consider buying any new planes? I’ve got a vicious circle going here, and new regulations aren’t going to help me at all.”
At the same time, local business leaders and government officials are wary that severe federal regulations might hurt their ability to attract hub-and-spoke operations to their airports. Such operations, spawned by deregulation of the air transit system, bring new jobs and revenues to airport communities.
At the Raleigh-Durham airport, expanded operations have been an economic tonic to the region, generating 21,800 jobs and $645.2 million in revenues. As American Airlines’ north-south hub, the two-runway field became America’s 32nd-busiest terminal in 1989, based on number of passengers, boardings and departures, up from 37th in 1988.
“Airport directors would oppose the FAA telling them what you will and won’t do as an airport director,” said Charles Barkley, executive director of the American Assn. of Airport Directors, a Washington-based trade association. “Airports are owned and operated by local governments . . . (and) local government should make most of the rules.”
Barkley dismisses any suggestion that the need to preserve local authority should provide an argument for keeping Washington out of the noise-abatement process, however.
“An airport is like any other major industry--its needs and the community’s needs must be balanced by environmental concerns and economic concerns,” he said. “There are federal interests involved as well.”
To stave off federal intervention, Raleigh-Durham officials enacted a noise-abatement program last May, and it drew virtually no opposition from Washington.
