FAA Agrees to Form Committee with Northeast Queens Pols and Residents

The Federal Aviation Administration has agreed to form a committee with northeast Queens elected officials and residents to review the decision-making process when approving new flight patterns in the area.  

The move follows months of complaints from Bayside and Douglaston residents who were being tormented by excessive airplane noise stemming from a new flight pattern out of LaGuardia Airport.  

Four elected officials representing the community – U.S. Reps. Grace Meng, D-Flushing, and Steve Israel, D-Great Neck, as well as state Sen. Tony Avella, D-Bayside, and state Assemblyman Edward Braunstein, D-Bayside – recently met with the FAA in Washington D.C. to persuade the agency to form the committee.  
“Agreeing to work with the community to review the new flight patterns and taking another look at the environmental assessment process in the step-by-step process we urged is a move in the right direction,” Meng said. “Although more still needs to be done, this is a positive move that can hopefully have an effect on the increased airplane noise that Queens residents have been forced to endure.”     

The new flight pattern was implemented in February 2012 on a six-month trial basis. In December, the FAA announced that it would make the new routes permanent.  

Northeast Queens residents grilled the FAA on the flight pattern during a meeting held by Avella and Braunstein in March.  

Both legislators said they believed the FAA’s agreeing to discuss the process of approving new routes with the community was a step in the right direction.  

“I am confident that an exhaustive review of the FAA’s process will reveal that the agency cut corners in its effort to justify implementing the new departure procedure,” Braunstein said.