A new plan that may change the way airplanes and other air traffic arrives at local airports got its first public airing Monday night.
As part of a proposal to improve the flow of air traffic into Southern Californian airports, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is looking to change air traffic procedures to a satellite-based system.
In lieu of this change, the U.S. Department of Transportation and FAA held a meeting in Logan Heights about the Draft Environmental Assessment for the Southern California Metroplex project.
"Satellite has a number of advantages it makes a safe system even safer it makes a system more efficient and throughout the country we’re seeing significant environmental benefits from the use of this type of policy," said Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the FAA.
The Metroplex proposal, which encompases several Southern California airports, is meant to increase the efficiency of the way planes come in to those airports primarily by switching them over to the FAA’s Next Generation Air Transportation System, NextGen.
“Many of the current air traffic procedures in Southern California are decades old,” the release said.
The procedures in place are safe, but rely on ground-based navigation aids instead of satellite-based procedures. Those aids limit the possible flight paths coming into the airport.
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The changes in flight plans will be made mostly at altitudes of 8,000 feet or higher and will have a minor impact on paths below then, said an expert that reviewed the full plans.
"I hope that we find out that we have less traffic coming over our houses and that they would go in different directions like they used to, they used to do that but there was less traffic then," said Point Loma resident Louis Moody.
Satellite-based procedures let planes take a more direct route, altitude and spped coming in. The project will also expand how many entry and exit points planes have when coming in and out of the plane, creating more on- and off-ramps in the sky.
