What would it take for the FAA to impose quiet hours at Palomar Airport?

Elected officials who represent North County are pushing the Federal Aviation Administration for a mandatory curfew at the McClellan-Palomar Airport in Carlsbad in order to ensure quieter nights for people living nearby. 

But their efforts are likely to prove futile. 

A 1990 law passed by Congress prevents airports without an existing curfew from imposing mandatory hours for flight operations. 

That means Palomar airport, which never enacted a mandatory noise program, has only had a voluntary curfew between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. for jets and 12 a.m. to 6 a.m. for propeller aircraft. Takeoffs and landings occur at all hours of the night despite the community’s pleas to avoid flying during that time.

The lack of a real curfew is a central issue for the surrounding residents who have filed numerous noise complaints and several lawsuits in recent years. They say they’ve been woken up by flights in the middle of the night, and they worry the recent return of commercial flights will only make it worse. 

To get a mandatory curfew is no easy feat. It would require either an act in Congress or a process known as “Part 161,” which is essentially an appeals process with the FAA. 

U.S. Rep. Mike Levin, who represents southern Orange County and North San Diego County, including Carlsbad, said that passing legislation through Congress would be “incredibly difficult.” 

Instead, he’s pushing the county to pursue the appeals process with the FAA, something he said he has discussed with the county. Yet that process seems difficult, too. 

In an interview before an online FAA discussion on Palomar Airport issues Thursday, Levin said, “I’ve reached the conclusion after these years that the voluntary program is not working as intended, and that the county needs to thoroughly explore what it would take to apply for and eventually receive a part 161 mandatory noise abatement program.”

In that webinar, Raquel Girvin, the FAA’s regional administrator for its Western-Pacific Region said getting a mandatory curfew with the FAA is a “tall order.” 

Victor Globa, in the FAA’s Office of Airports, said that “numerous” local governments in the country have applied for mandatory noise restrictions, and none have been successful. 

To win such approval, San Diego County would need to prove the restriction: 

• is reasonable, nonarbitrary, and nondiscriminatory;
• does not create an undue burden on interstate or foreign commerce;
• maintains safe and efficient use of the navigable airspace;
• does not conflict with any existing federal statute or regulation; 
• does not create an undue burden on the national aviation system, and that
• the applicant has provided adequate opportunity for public comment.

Girvin said it’s “safe to say that Congress kind of set the bar pretty high for these mandatory noise restrictions.”

A lack of enforcement

The noise issue has taken on greater urgency in the past year with plans for United and American airlines to fly commercial flights out of Palomar Airport.

As it stands, San Diego County has appeared unable to get commercial airlines to agree to fly during specific hours: A United Airlines representative said in December that she could not agree to Lawson-Remer’s request to promise not to fly during the night in the future, and American Airlines did not agree to the county’s initial request to move its flight during the quiet hours at the time. 

American Airlines flights take off at 6:40 a.m. each day. 

“It’s really a business decision of an airline or a commercial operator when they need to depart the airport,” Jamie Abbott, the director of San Diego airports, said at the FAA webinar. “We can’t discriminate on telling an aircraft when they can and cannot fly.”

When the San Diego County Board of Supervisors approved a lease with United Airlines in December, Chair Terra Lawson-Remer said she would like county staff to continue working on the process of getting an enforceable curfew by appealing the FAA. 

She was the sole vote against the United Airlines lease. There was no vote or direct order on her desire to pursue changing the noise requirement that day. Staff told Lawson-Remer that the process would be both expensive and unlikely to be effective. 

In the meantime, the Palomar Airport Advisory Committee, a group of nine appointees of the Board of Supervisors, is working on a program that recognizes pilots who fly during daytime hours in an effort to incentivize voluntary compliance. 

Concerned residents have been pushing for a meeting with the FAA for years. Thursday’s was the first. Levin said he was disappointed that he could not be on the panel for the meeting. He and Lawson-Remer both sent questions to FAA officials during the question and answer portion of the webinar. He asked about safety and noise, and she asked about communication about the airport. 

One of the most outspoken community members, Dom Betro, who leads the Palomar Airport Action Network, told inewsource after the meeting that he was disappointed by it because he did not think the FAA took community concerns seriously. 

“Many community members have invested significant time and effort advocating for a quality of life that places appropriate emphasis on health and safety, and these concerns did not appear to be meaningfully acknowledged.”