Group Is Fighting FAA Over NE Airspace Redesign

Given his priorities in Washington, you might forgive FAA Acting Administrator Bobby Sturgell for blowing off a town meeting called by furious Connecticut residents living in towns planning to sue the FAA over its new northeast airspace plan. But the citizens of those communities weren't as charitable.

Sturgell (right) was invited to be a guest at Monday night's meeting in Greenwich. It was in no way an FAA public hearing. Still, the Greenwich Post reports the perceived snub further inflamed area lawmakers representing the region around Fairfield County, which would see increased fly-overs by airliners under the airspace plan.

"The redesign will require aircraft to fly longer distances, producing air noise and fuel burn impact. There is nothing to suggest that the redesign will reduce delays," said Judy Nelville, chief operation officer for the Alliance for Sensible Airspace Planning, a group of protestors from a dozen towns in Connecticut and upstate New York.

Inviting Sturgell to Monday's meeting appears to have been a ploy. As ANN reported, the FAA announced last September the 120 public hearings it had already held on the issue were as far as it could go to accommodate the NIMBYs, and scheduled the airspace changes to take effect in January 2009.

Nancy Kalinowski, Acting Vice President of Systems Operations at the FAA, told the group last year it would be inappropriate for agency officials to attend any alliance meetings until lawsuits filed by the alliance and the state of Connecticut are settled... but that didn't stop attendees from slamming the FAA anyway over the no-show.

"The FAA, the way they treat the general public, trust me, is the way they treat the members of Congress," said US Congressman Christopher Shays, whose district includes Greenwich. "The company culture of the FAA is simply to not respond in any way to the public via its elected officials.

"We need the FAA to have an obligation to care about quality of life issues and an obligation to listen to the general public."

FMI: www.sensibleairspace.org, www.faa.gov/nynjphl_airspace_redesign