Nassau residents airing noise complaints as officials lobby for JFK runway changes
A large passenger jet flies over Floral Park in 2014, bound for a runway at Kennedy Airport. Credit: Craig Ruttle
Some Nassau County residents are complaining about being bombarded with noise from low-flying planes after a group of elected officials said the Federal Aviation Administration abandoned a plan that had curbed the racket by changing flight procedures at Kennedy Airport’s main arrival runways.
On Monday, Reps. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) and Anthony D’Esposito (R-Island Park), along with state, town and village officials, wrote to FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker, calling on the agency to re-implement a 2019 agreement that kept aircrafts approaching runways 22L and 22R at or above 3,000 feet until within 15 miles of the airport.
The FAA declined to answer questions from Newsday about why it apparently discarded the agreement, which followed a bevy of resident and lawmaker complaints.
FAA spokesman Rick Breitenfeldt said in a statement that officials from several towns located near Kennedy filed a petition with the agency on July 3 seeking to restore Runway 22 operations to levels established in the 2019 agreement.
"We are reviewing the petition," Breitenfeldt said. "The FAA will continue to consider input from congressional offices and the public but cannot comment until the petition is resolved."
Long Island lawmakers also held a meeting with FAA officials on July 15 to discuss the issue, including having planes follow a "continuous descent final approach" protocol into runways 22L/R starting at a 4,000-foot altitude and a distance of 12 nautical miles from the airport.
The letter from elected officials comes as new data from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airport, shows runways 22L and 22R now are responsible for more than half of arriving flights at Kennedy — despite 22L's previous stature as a runway of last resort for when weather, traffic and construction prevent the use of other runways.
In June 2023, 47.9% of all arriving flights used those two runways, while that figure leapt to a high of 76% the following month, according to the agency's data. It also indicates that in June 2024, 56% of all arriving flights used the two runways.
Seymour Spiegel, 77, of Jericho, said he's used an app to track airplanes flying over his home at less than 1,900 feet — loud enough to prevent him from falling asleep at night and providing an unwelcome wake-up call before 5 a.m. Spiegel said the noise is so loud that most days he and his wife Helen can't sit outside on their deck.
"They're not dispersing the flights. Sometimes, when it's bad, they come at 15-second intervals — just one after the other. The noise is disturbing. We're all entitled to peace and quiet. And we're not getting it," he added.
It's not just an inconvenience.
A study from Boston University's School of Public Health and Oregon State University that was published in May found people exposed to aircraft noise above a certain decibel were more likely to have a higher body mass index, which can lead to conditions including heart attacks, strokes and diabetes.
Suozzi said the FAA "inexplicably abandoned" the 2019 agreement after about 18 months — during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when air traffic was down significantly.
"The FAA is very difficult ... We negotiated an agreement before that was satisfactory. I'm just asking to go back to the previous agreement," the congressman added in an interview.
Port Authority data shows 22L is the busiest of the airport's eight arrival runways. Combined with the more modestly utilized 22R, the two runways received 9,235 arriving flights in June 2023. This June, the two runways combined to handle 11,137 arriving flights, a 20.5% increase compared with the same month last year.
Suozzi attributes some of the problem to the FAA's Next Generation Air Transportation, or NextGen, system. The technology, designed to make flying safer and more efficient, was adopted by the FAA in 2015 and was used to reroute many of Kennedy's flights to follow one direct path over residential Long Island neighborhoods, particularly Nassau's North Shore.
"They come in a much more narrower funnel, so less people are affected," Suozzi said. "But for the people that are affected, there's more planes going over that area."
D'Esposito said in part in a statement Thursday that he'll "continue collaborating with community stakeholders and engaging with Federal Aviation Administration officials to advocate for flight pattern changes that relieve 4th district neighbors of the constant aircraft noise."
Bernard Ryba, the mayor of Old Brookville, a village 17 miles from the airport, said the Kennedy flight path has been a problem since he took office 15 years ago.
Noise pollution, he said, abated somewhat after the 2019 agreement but has gotten worse again in recent months.
"We take a great deal of pride in our community and want to enjoy our community in the evenings, particularly on the weekend in the summertime," said Ryba, who would like to see flights better dispersed across more Nassau communities. "But it's difficult to do that when every 30 to 45 seconds, you've got a jet flying over the community."
Port Authority data shows in June, residents of New Hyde Park, Floral Park, Rosedale and Roslyn filed the most number of complaints about Kennedy noise levels.
That month alone, the Port Authority received more than 86,000 complaints about airplane noise — the overwhelming majority coming through a third-party app that allows residents to easily, and repeatedly, express their displeasure about noise levels. That's a 433% increase from June 2023, the data shows.
But the figures come with a caveat.
Of the 88,745 combined third-party app noise complaints the Port Authority received in June for Kennedy, LaGuardia Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey and New York Stewart International Airport in Orange County, just under half were submitted by 10 households, records show.
While the complaint numbers may be inflated, some of the residents who live in the flight path of Kennedy's runways 22L/R said their frustrations are real.
Guido Garfunkel, 47, of Albertson, said noise from overhead planes has been so disturbing that he recently spent $10,000 for secondary window panes in his upstairs bedrooms.
Even with the added layer of protection, Garfunkel and his wife sleep with a white noise machine on.
"The body reacts to the sound waves produced by aircraft noise," he said. "The anxiety that the noise creates after several days of it every other minute has created a lot of stress with me and has repercussions for my wife and 9-year-old daughter."
Some Nassau County residents are complaining about being bombarded with noise from low-flying planes after a group of elected officials said the Federal Aviation Administration abandoned a plan that had curbed the racket by changing flight procedures at Kennedy Airport’s main arrival runways.
On Monday, Reps. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) and Anthony D’Esposito (R-Island Park), along with state, town and village officials, wrote to FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker, calling on the agency to re-implement a 2019 agreement that kept aircrafts approaching runways 22L and 22R at or above 3,000 feet until within 15 miles of the airport.
The FAA declined to answer questions from Newsday about why it apparently discarded the agreement, which followed a bevy of resident and lawmaker complaints.
FAA spokesman Rick Breitenfeldt said in a statement that officials from several towns located near Kennedy filed a petition with the agency on July 3 seeking to restore Runway 22 operations to levels established in the 2019 agreement.
WHAT TO KNOW
- A Monday letter from elected officials on Long Island asks the Federal Aviation Administration to return to the terms of a 2019 agreement that kept aircrafts approaching two Kennedy Airport runways at or above 3,000 feet until within 15 miles of the airport.
- The FAA hasn't commented on why it apparently discarded the agreement.
- Some Nassau residents said the noise detracts from the quality of their lives.
"We are reviewing the petition," Breitenfeldt said. "The FAA will continue to consider input from congressional offices and the public but cannot comment until the petition is resolved."
Long Island lawmakers also held a meeting with FAA officials on July 15 to discuss the issue, including having planes follow a "continuous descent final approach" protocol into runways 22L/R starting at a 4,000-foot altitude and a distance of 12 nautical miles from the airport.
No 'peace and quiet'
The letter from elected officials comes as new data from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airport, shows runways 22L and 22R now are responsible for more than half of arriving flights at Kennedy — despite 22L's previous stature as a runway of last resort for when weather, traffic and construction prevent the use of other runways.
In June 2023, 47.9% of all arriving flights used those two runways, while that figure leapt to a high of 76% the following month, according to the agency's data. It also indicates that in June 2024, 56% of all arriving flights used the two runways.
Seymour Spiegel, 77, of Jericho, said he's used an app to track airplanes flying over his home at less than 1,900 feet — loud enough to prevent him from falling asleep at night and providing an unwelcome wake-up call before 5 a.m. Spiegel said the noise is so loud that most days he and his wife Helen can't sit outside on their deck.
"They're not dispersing the flights. Sometimes, when it's bad, they come at 15-second intervals — just one after the other. The noise is disturbing. We're all entitled to peace and quiet. And we're not getting it," he added.
It's not just an inconvenience.
A study from Boston University's School of Public Health and Oregon State University that was published in May found people exposed to aircraft noise above a certain decibel were more likely to have a higher body mass index, which can lead to conditions including heart attacks, strokes and diabetes.
Agreement 'abandoned'
Suozzi said the FAA "inexplicably abandoned" the 2019 agreement after about 18 months — during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when air traffic was down significantly.
"The FAA is very difficult ... We negotiated an agreement before that was satisfactory. I'm just asking to go back to the previous agreement," the congressman added in an interview.
Port Authority data shows 22L is the busiest of the airport's eight arrival runways. Combined with the more modestly utilized 22R, the two runways received 9,235 arriving flights in June 2023. This June, the two runways combined to handle 11,137 arriving flights, a 20.5% increase compared with the same month last year.
Suozzi attributes some of the problem to the FAA's Next Generation Air Transportation, or NextGen, system. The technology, designed to make flying safer and more efficient, was adopted by the FAA in 2015 and was used to reroute many of Kennedy's flights to follow one direct path over residential Long Island neighborhoods, particularly Nassau's North Shore.
"They come in a much more narrower funnel, so less people are affected," Suozzi said. "But for the people that are affected, there's more planes going over that area."
D'Esposito said in part in a statement Thursday that he'll "continue collaborating with community stakeholders and engaging with Federal Aviation Administration officials to advocate for flight pattern changes that relieve 4th district neighbors of the constant aircraft noise."
Bernard Ryba, the mayor of Old Brookville, a village 17 miles from the airport, said the Kennedy flight path has been a problem since he took office 15 years ago.
Noise pollution, he said, abated somewhat after the 2019 agreement but has gotten worse again in recent months.
"We take a great deal of pride in our community and want to enjoy our community in the evenings, particularly on the weekend in the summertime," said Ryba, who would like to see flights better dispersed across more Nassau communities. "But it's difficult to do that when every 30 to 45 seconds, you've got a jet flying over the community."
An aerial view of Kennedy Airport this May. Credit: Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
Port Authority data shows in June, residents of New Hyde Park, Floral Park, Rosedale and Roslyn filed the most number of complaints about Kennedy noise levels.
That month alone, the Port Authority received more than 86,000 complaints about airplane noise — the overwhelming majority coming through a third-party app that allows residents to easily, and repeatedly, express their displeasure about noise levels. That's a 433% increase from June 2023, the data shows.
But the figures come with a caveat.
Of the 88,745 combined third-party app noise complaints the Port Authority received in June for Kennedy, LaGuardia Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey and New York Stewart International Airport in Orange County, just under half were submitted by 10 households, records show.
While the complaint numbers may be inflated, some of the residents who live in the flight path of Kennedy's runways 22L/R said their frustrations are real.
Guido Garfunkel, 47, of Albertson, said noise from overhead planes has been so disturbing that he recently spent $10,000 for secondary window panes in his upstairs bedrooms.
Even with the added layer of protection, Garfunkel and his wife sleep with a white noise machine on.
"The body reacts to the sound waves produced by aircraft noise," he said. "The anxiety that the noise creates after several days of it every other minute has created a lot of stress with me and has repercussions for my wife and 9-year-old daughter."
Robert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.
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