MINNEAPOLIS – Many residents of south Minneapolis have become accustomed to planes flying overhead, but noise complaints to the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) have soared recently.
There were 12,000 complaints in June, according to MAC Manager of Noise, Environment and Planning Dana Nelson. She said many of those complaints stem from a rise in late night and early morning flights.
"We are seeing a 13% increase in the number of arrivals and departures during that time period," said Nelson. "We are seeing more night time scheduled operations from the air carriers. They seem to be operating more red eye flights from the west coast and particularly, the 5 a.m. hour, from 5 a.m. to 6 a.m., we are seeing a lot more arrivals."
The increase in noise at those hours has prompted a response from the South Metro Airport Action Council (SMAAC), which lobbies the MAC and public agencies on airport issues.
"Some of the noisiest planes that use this airport do fly at night," said Jim Spensley, SMAAC President. "FedEx flies a DC-10 in here every night and if he is late, he is likely to be loud."
According to MAC officials, there are several other factors that led to the increased complaints. Complaints about noise typically rise in Spring and Summer, when residents open windows and spend more time outdoors. The airlines are tending to use larger planes, which take longer to reach altitude after takeoff, meaning that the planes are lower over South Minneapolis than smaller planes. Lower means louder, according to the MAC.
"Since we are a public use airport, we cannot pose any restrictions as to who can fly in and out of here or what time of day they can fly or what kind of aircraft they can fly," said Nelson. "The Federal Aviation Administration gives us a federal grant to operate the airport and they also post some grant assurances along with those that says the airport must remain open and available to anyone 24 hours a day."
"The implication is that they have to accept all these flights one right after the other that is not correct," said Spensley. "Full access would mean for 160 operations, an operation (take off or landing) every minute, right? Where the real requirement is to have one runway open."
Nelson insisted the MAC is not ignoring the issue.
"We are planning to bring this to our MAC Noise oversight Committee," said Nelson, "and talk about the increases that we have been seeing in scheduled operations by the air carriers and bring that to their attention."
The Noise Oversight Committee is composed of half citizen members and half representatives of the air carriers.
"They cannot do anything as to restricting any aircraft from flying in and out of here," said Nelson. "They are a policy recommendation board so they bring policy recommendations to our full MAC board."
