The Airport and the Environment
As air travel continues to become more popular and accessible for the average person the rise in noise pollution will also continue. The average American has accepted the occasional noise of a jet flying above them because they know that the trade off of having air travel is worth the noise. The reason why I believe noise pollution will become an increasingly bigger problem is because as air travel grows so does the sound of air planes flying in and out of densely populated areas.
If you look at where most international airports are located you’ll find that the majority of airports are located very close to the city centers. This causes a large amount of people to hear a jet flying by at low altitude frequently. Take Burbank airport for example, it is housed in a large residential suburb of Los Angeles. Houses are in close proximity to the departure and approach path causing a high volume of noise pollution that is being projected on to people living in nearby homes. This has caused Burbank airport to implement a strict noise curfew of 10:00 P.M to avoid disturbing its residents.
Some of the activities that are prohibited are:
- Intersection takeoffs
- Maintenance run-ups
- Flight training operations
- Practice approaches
- Touch and go landings
The fine for a first-time violation is $1,603 and subsequent violations are each fined $2,328.
The main problem for airport managers is that as air travel grows there will be a higher volume of airplanes flying over residential areas. There is little that can be done from an airport mangers stand point except for implementing noise obtainment procedures. Even these procedures will not totally solve the problem. In my opinion the only real way to fix noise pollution would to be position the airport outside of densely populated residential areas. Denver International airport chose to locate there airport 26 miles away from downtown Denver because it wanted to limit the amount of noise pollution its residents would endure. There are pros and cons of having an airport located that far away from a city center, but for the people of Denver they decided the pros out weighed the cons when deciding on where to put the airport.
Word Count — 375
References —
FAA. (2020, October 28). Airport Noise and Land Use Information, including Noise Exposure Maps Https://www.faa.gov/airports/environmental/airport_noise/noise_exposure_maps/.
Burbank Hollywood Airport. (2019, April 1). Noise Rules Summary. Retrieved December 01, 2020, from https://hollywoodburbankairport.com/noise-environment/noise-rules-summary/
