Satellites are helping guide commercial airliners to more direct routes in and out of airports. But the air traffic control technology and procedures known as NextGen have also increased complaints about airport noise, and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan is demanding that the Federal Aviation Administration do something about it.
In a May 11 letter to FAA Administrator Michael Huerta, Governor Hogan asks the FAA to “immediately return to the pre-NextGen flight patterns” at BWI Marshall Airport and Reagan National Airport.
The FAA has said that NextGen technology and procedures are boosting safety in the skies and also saving the airlines billions of dollars in fuel costs. In his letter, Gov. Hogan acknowledges that the current flight patterns are saving the airlines a lot of money but he wrote, “I will not have the citizens of Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Howard and Montgomery Counties pay a human cost with their health and emotional well-being.”
In talks with community groups earlier this spring, the FAA rejected calls to overhaul the NextGen flight patterns.
http://wtop.com/maryland/2017/05/gov-hogan-urges-faa-stop-noisy-airport-technology-bwi-reagan/