A couple weeks ago, Delaware County filed a lawsuit against the FAA challenging the FAA’s flight path redesign plan. In Swarthmore, the Republican mayor and a Democratic borough councilman joined as plaintiffs to the suit. The Swarthmorean carried an item on the topic that should be useful for anybody who would like more of an insider’s view of the suit. Unfortunately, the Swarthmorean  doesn’t produce an on-line edition, so I’m reprinting the article here with the permission of the author:

Last Friday Swarthmore Mayor Eck Gerner and Swarthmore Council member Geoff Semenuk became plaintiffs in the Delaware County lawsuit seeking to halt the FAA air-space redesign plan that seeks to redirect an open-ended number of departing flights over the center of the county. The suit, which Semenuk says is “currently the best chance to stop the FAA” seeks to show that the FAA failed to fully comply with the legal requirements of the plan’s Environmental Impact Study.

Among other points, the suit contends that the FAA failed to properly study noise levels by looking at averaged noise of a 24-hour period rather than the specific noise associated with an actual plane flying overhead or nearby. Another target of the suit is that the FAA failed to properly factor in the positive airline traffic effects of its own approved and under-contruction 17-35 runway extension. “The FAA predicated their plan on conditions they knew they were improving with this other project ,” Semenuk added.

Although Gerner and Semenuk were happy to lend support to the hard work of County Council Chair Andrew Reilly, who has spear-headed this bi-partisan effort and was kind enough to speak to Borough Council on this matter last year, they admit that the issue is bigger than just this particular lawsuit. “No one wants the airport to fall on hard times, most of us use it and depend on it in varying degrees,” said Gerner. “The shame of this is that delays could be ended tomorrow if the FAA forced the airlines to spread their schedules more evenly during the day instead of over-booking those popular rush hours.”

“So when the FAA says that because of flight delays it has to fly fully-fueled and sold-out passenger planes at full throttle and only a few hundred feet above the center of the second most densely populated county in Pennsylvania, they are clearly being disingenuous,” said Semenuk.

Last week in one of her final public speeches before leaving her post as head of the FAA in order to become the president and CEO of a company that lobbies the FAA to adopt automated air traffic control technology of the sort she has been publically promoting for a number of years, Marion Blakey made this admission: “To be clear, the airlines need to take a step back on the scheduling practices that are at times out of line with reality. Passengers are growing weary . . . And if the airlines don’t address this voluntarily, don’t be surprised when the government steps in. Drawing down the schedule at Chicago was not my happiest hour, but it could come to that on the East Coast as well.”

In Chicago in 2004, the FAA stepped in and forced the airline industry to reduce the number of takeoffs and landings between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. to 88 per hour, down from over 130 or more, reducing delays by 24.5 percent in 2005.

Why the FAA doesn’t simply make airlines comply with common sense isn’t a mystery though, the FAA charter is to promote the airline industry as well as ensure its safe operation. Semenuk adds, “It is a shame that our federal government can only seem to respond to a crisis instead of guiding an industry to adopt safe and reasonable practices. The airlines wouldn’t lose any money, people would still buy tickets to get from point A to point B. If I was forced to fly at 10 a.m. instead of 8 a.m. I’m not going to cancel the trip. I’d much rather have a reliable off-peak travel time than risk turning my trip into some delay-ridden day long saga.”

When asked what the public could do, Gerner and Semenuk agreed that citizens should contact both the FAA and even individual airlines with comments. “The airlines want to make profits, and the FAA want to help them do that. If they think that real people in real numbers are noticing that their industry is undertaking poor practices, perhaps then they will voluntarily make more sensible schedules,” said Semenuk.

Gerner and Semenuk also noted that Swarthmore’s elected representatives Congressman Sestak, State Senator Erickson, and State Representative Lentz were also standing shoulder to shoulder with the County Council and the citizen plaintiffs in support of Council’s efforts. Reilly, Sestak, Erickson, and Lentz acknowledged gratitude for everyone in our area that has already written letters and attended local forums addressing this issue.