FOCUS: AIRPORT NOISE BATTLE

Residents applaud future flight paths but say they won’t address ongoing concerns

After a year of lobbying by Point Loma residents, the Federal Aviation Administration is attempting to keep noisy air traffic away from the peninsula’s neighborhoods and landmarks by adjusting a proposed departure route for eastbound flights out of San Diego International Airport.

However, residents remain concerned about the current flight path for some planes that head south out of the airport and then bank sharply to the east over the finger of land.

“As this relates to the peninsula communities, this is a significant win, but it doesn’t do anything to impact the day-to-day issues,” said Casey Schnoor, a member of an organized group of residents.

The FAA has embarked on a plan to revise arrival and departure routes at airports around the nation to trim costs and aviation fuel expenses. Locally, the agency proposed a change that eliminated a flight “waypoint” southwest of the southernmost tip of Point Loma for outbound flights. That adjustment caused people who live on the peninsula to worry — and protest — that planes headed to destinations east would pass directly over their homes as they flew toward a waypoint over the Silver Strand south of Coronado.

Read the rest of this article here: http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2016/sep/08/new-flight-path-spares-point-loma-from-airplane/