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Dear Friends,
Below we recap actions since last Summer at the federal and regional/ local level which are part of the broader FAA Noise Policy issues that impact how air traffic changes and resultant noise are managed. City Council is in recess soon; in the Fall we will be looking to engage further on some of these topics, both with the City and with candidates running for Council.
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At the federal level, on July 3, 2025 the FAA announced an update of their FAA Order 1050.1G. The changes were mainly to address industry issues; see our response letter to the FAA's Federal Register solicitation for comments.
1050.1G are the FAA’s rules to meet their obligation to fulfill National Environmental Review Policy (NEPA) when taking any action including airspace actions that direct where and how aircraft fly. FAA Order 1050.1G is based on the 1976 FAA Noise Policy, which has been under review since the unveiling of a new national curve to inform US aircraft noise policy, see more info (here). The FAA’s noise policy review process includes the creation of an Aircraft Noise Advisory Committee (ANAC) that has not yet been established. The Congressional Quiet Skies Caucus has recently urged the FAA to solicit members for the ANAC, and to hold its first meeting by December. Rep Liccardo is part of the Quiet Skies Caucus, see the QSC letter; more info on ANAC and the FAA Noise Policy Review is available (here). Any future changes or improvements to 1050.1G will depend on the outcome of the ANAC and Noise Policy Review. A topic that we will be looking to see covered by ANAC is how the FAA fulfills the FAA’s ICAO Balanced Approach commitments. The balanced approach was on the agenda for The Twenty-Sixth Meeting of the U.S.-EU Joint Committee, an official bilateral conference dedicated to governing the U.S.-EU Air Transport Agreement (ATA), see items 13 and 14 on the link (here). Stay tuned, in the Fall we will do a deeper dive on why the Balanced Approach matters and how it relates to the Noise Policy Review.
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At the regional/ local level SFO’s FEIR for an SFO planned expansion passed in February despite a challenge from the City of Palo Alto at SFO’s Board of Supervisors. We engaged the City of Palo Alto on SFO’s planned expansion per the City’s “Fast Track” policy, a policy that spells out a way for the City to respond to airspace actions that can negatively impact Palo Alto. See our HANDOUT on this topic.
If you have followed our communications on SFO’s plans, SFO’s FEIR was challenged by the City of Palo Alto up to the review by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors but not at the Superior Court level. Effectively, SFO and its sponsor, the City & County of San Francisco, pushed past all objections. We strongly believe that the City of Palo Alto had a good case in court and that it would have been fruitful to pursue because the FEIR was - as described by the City Manager “deeply flawed.” Our questions to Mayor Vicki Venkeer and Vice Mayor Greer Stone on why the City declined to appear in Superior Court have not yet had a response. Council is now in recess but we will continue to ask because understanding these decisions by the City help inform advocacy, as well as for transparency reasons.
SFO’s Fly Quiet Program (see webinar info - tomorrow at 6PM): The Technical Working Group of the SFO Roundtable has been reviewing SFO’s Fly Quiet Program which is a program that is intended to incentivize airlines and pilots to reduce noise from their operations. For all those interested in learning more, the group is meeting to discuss their final recommendations; the agenda and how to join the webinar is here. SFO’s Fly Quiet Program and other similar programs around the county rely on noise measurements and data; however, SFO’s noise monitoring stops at Redwood City. On April 27, we submitted a public comment, SFO Fly Quiet Program does not serve Mid_Peninsula populations, and underscored that the areas that generate the majority of SFO noise complaints and are highly populated receive neither adequate data collection, meaningful analysis, nor targeted noise mitigation measures. We will be following up with Councilmember Greer Stone who is the City’s liaison to the SFO Roundtable regarding some of the points we raised in our email and in particular night time noise concerns.
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On March 31, the FAA announced a major safety ruling altering SFO’s arrival patterns. See the News on the ruling.
The FAA’s safety ruling ended the simultaneous parallel approaches that SFO relied on to achieve higher landing rates. Over the years, safety margins on these procedures had been shrinking as SFO and the FAA reduced the minimum visibility ranges pilots could use — effectively allowing smaller side-by-side separation. For safety, planes now land staggered, which also has the effect of reducing landing rates. The periodic noise assessments that we have recommended the City to carry out will be more important now because SFO continues working with the FAA to increase arrival rates, and while there will be no return to simultaneous parallel approaches, other changes that could affect the City still need to be monitored.
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