January 2025 MoCo Quiet Skies Coalition New Year's Update

2025 NEW YEAR’S UPDATE: Status of aircraft noise impacting MoCo communities

DCA approach procedures (in southflow)

DCA departure procedures (in northflow)

Nighttime noise

Northflow/Southflow ratio

Overview

Several changes occurred over the past year in the skies above our Montgomery County communities.  This update provides an overview of where things stand and mentions a few items to look forward to.  As always, please contact us with any questions, comments, or concerns.

DCA Approach Procedures in South Flow

The new approach procedures into DCA, which started to be implemented in July, have successfully shifted some approaching aircraft toward more noise-compatible areas on the Virginia side of the Potomac River, and also have succeeded in dispersing them somewhat.  Initial, rudimentary data provided by MWAA shows that the number of flights that are flying a track other than the published path has increased by over 70% since July.  Prior to implementation of the new procedures, about 13-14% of flights showed some track variability.  Now the number is about 23-24%. As expected, however, over 75% of aircraft still fly on or near the published path and a number of MoCo communities still are bombarded when the airspace is busy, as it has been over the holidays.

Notably, the new procedures have not been fully implemented. PSA Airlines, a regional air carrier for American Airlines, is not yet flying the new procedures because they need more time to train their pilots on a procedural change close to the airport.   We were recently informed that PSA expects all the training to be complete by the end of January.  Once that happens, we expect to experience additional incremental improvements. 

Montgomery County still plans to ask its aviation consultant to collect and analyze data on the noise impacts of the new approach procedures, but only once they are fully operational.  We now anticipate this will happen in the first half of 2025. 

DCA Departure Procedures in North Flow

There have been no changes since early 2021 for departures when DCA is operating in north flow.  The 2021 change lessened noise a little bit for communities north of the Bethesda/Potomac line, and had no effect on communities in other parts of the county. 

Nighttime noise

Regrettably, nighttime aircraft noise has worsened again.  In November 2024, DCA completed a 2-year nighttime runway repaving project that had halted flights between 11pm and 6am during the spring, summer and fall of 2023 and 2024.  (During the winter of 2023/24 the repaving was not happening due to cold weather.)  As a result, our communities are once again suffering from the noise of late night and early morning flights.  These flights disturb residents throughout the county and we’ve been hearing about this from some of you.  Unfortunately, under federal law (specifically the Airport Noise and Capacity Act of 1990), airlines are allowed to operate 24/7 at DCA and almost all other airports throughout the U.S. 

Northflow/Southflow ratio 

DCA operates in northflow (and MoCo communities experience departures) about 60% of the time, and operates in southflow (when we experience approaches) about 40% of the time. Northflow is more common in winter and southflow is more common in summer.  This FAA operational decision is due primarily to wind direction, which changes seasonally and is a safety issue, but FAA Air Traffic Controller preference is also a factor.  For years, DCA Community Noise Working Group (CWG) members from all political jurisdictions (Maryland, DC and Virginia) have asked the FAA whether it would be possible to get a more equitable 50/50 split between northflow and southflow. For as long as the Working Group has been meeting, the FAA’s answer has consistently been “no.”  In early 2020, when Montgomery County hired an aviation consultant, we asked him to evaluate a 50/50 split and to advocate for that with the FAA if it was feasible and advantageous to all communities. Our consultant confirmed what the FAA Air Traffic Control liaison had been saying for years, namely that the FAA will not put community noise concerns before operational needs. So, this question was asked and answered many times. The FAA took the time to explain the technical reasons why air traffic controllers prefer northflow during the November 2019 CWG meeting.  The question may arise again as part of the south-of-the-airport analysis that will be discussed at the January 23rd Working Group meeting; should any of our members like to listen in, here’s a link to the CWG  webpage where you can click to join the meeting at 6:00pm.

To sum up, 2024 saw positive changes for MoCo communities suffering from the impacts of concentrated aircraft noise.   After 8 years of concerted advocacy on the part of our communities, the FAA shifted aircraft approaches somewhat towards the Virginia side of the river, and introduced some dispersion of aircraft as well.  These improvements build on the success that was achieved in 2021 when we got some noise mitigation for departure procedures north of Cabin John and Bethesda.  In sum, while there is still far too much aircraft noise over our homes and neighborhoods, we succeeded in two ways: (1) we stopped the FAA from implementing even more damaging procedures over MoCo communities, and (2) we successfully persuaded the agency to replace those plans with new procedures that are better for many of our communities.  Now begins the work of monitoring the airspace changes and understanding their impacts in greater detail, as well as advocating for a Fly Quiet program at DCA.  We will keep you apprised of these efforts as they evolve.  

As always, please contact us with any questions, comments or concerns.