San Francisco supervisors, airport officials press FAA after NextGen concentrates flight tracks over southern neighborhoods

On Dec. 3, 2018, the joint San Francisco Land Use & Transportation Committee and the Airport Commission held a hearing on aircraft noise concentrated over southern parts of the city after the Federal Aviation Administration's NextGen navigation changes. Supervisor Asha Safai, who called the hearing, said residents have complained that GPS-based procedures implemented mid-decade turned once-dispersed tracks into a narrow "river" of departures that now pass over Bayview-Hunters Point, Visitation Valley, the Excelsior and other neighborhoods.

"It is too low, too loud, and too often," resident Luis Betanzas told the committee, summarizing what many speakers described as an around-the-clock problem. Multiple residents urged federal action and local advocacy, with some calling for a 10,000-foot minimum for flights over the city.

Director Ivar Sattero of San Francisco International Airport told the panel that NextGen, introduced in Northern California around 20142015, tightened departure corridors by shifting ground-based navigation to…