FAA finishes curfew papers

BOB HOPE AIRPORT — The Federal Aviation Administration on Friday informed the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority that its application for a proposed nighttime curfew at Bob Hope Airport was complete, setting off a nearly six-month review period.

The announcement, made late Friday in an announcement signed by Catherine Lang, the FAA’s acting associate administrator for airports, establishes that the authority’s roughly 800-page request to restrict all landings and departures at Bob Hope Airport between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. is complete. The FAA has until Nov. 1 to deliver a decision.

Although the application is technically complete, the airport must provide some additional paperwork by June 15, Lang wrote in her letter to Executive Director Dan Feger.

The nine-year, $6.5-million Bob Hope Airport Part 161 Study is the first of its kind to make it through the review process, airport spokesman Victor Gill said.

News of the approval comes two months after the FAA approved the application with two minor exceptions. Notice of the FAA’s acceptance of the complete application will be published in the Federal Register, Gill said.

Airport officials commissioned the study after decades of complaints from neighbors over pollution and noise. Some 200,000 county residents are subjected to the clatter.

If the FAA approves the curfew, both it and the airport authority would save about $59 million over 10 years on insulating area homes currently affected by the noise. It would, however, lose some $48 million by limiting its flight schedule, according to the study.

Bob Hope Airport was one of the first airstrips in the country to ban noisy airplanes.

Federal regulations require airports to complete the exhaustive report, and pass muster with the FAA before imposing new operation regulations on their grounds.

Along with a positive cost-benefit analysis, the airport must also satisfy several requirements, including that the curfew does not unduly burden interstate or foreign commerce, or conflict with federal law. The process must also include adequate public involvement.