May 05--A commission of more than 50 municipalities and school districts around O'Hare International Airport will vote Friday on a proposed "Fly Quiet" plan, which proponents say will spread the pain of late night and early morning jet noise more fairly across the region.
City aviation officials will try to convince at least two-thirds of the O'Hare Noise Compatibility Commission to support the plan for rotating jet traffic between about 10:30 p.m. to about 5:30 a.m. The new nighttime plan, which will be tested over six months, aims at alternating planes onto different runways on a week-to-week basis.
"The goal is to balance airport noise exposure," said Chicago Department of Aviation spokesman Owen Kilmer, who was "confident" the plan would be approved. Kilmer said the plan reflects input from the Federal Aviation Administration and municipal groups, including Fair Allocation in Runways or FAiR, which represents city and suburban residents.
The FAA must approve and implement the plan, and the city wants a clear consensus which would be underscored by a two-thirds majority vote. Commission Chair and Mount Prospect Mayor Arlene Juracek believes a two-thirds vote is possible.
"A lot of folks have been working hard, talking to their neighboring communities," said Juracek. "We feel good we can demonstrate there is a consensus."
Palatine councilman Tim Millar, who opposes the plan, thinks the vote will be "very close." He said the plan shifts more noise onto the northwest suburbs -- such as Palatine, Arlington Heights and Rosemont -- and away from Chicago's northwest side.
"It's obvious who the actual winner is -- that would be Chicago," said Millar.
Residents of communities around the airport have complained for decades about jets roaring over their heads, disrupting sleep and barbecues.
But complaints have increased in recent years after the city began shifting traffic from the older diagonal runways to new parallel east-west runways, which concentrate more traffic over the city's North Side and the western suburbs. The city got more than four million noise complaints in 2015.
Under the proposal, runways picked for nighttime air travel would change week to week -- for example, in week one, the east-west 10L/28R runway would be used, then a diagonal runway in week two, then back to east-west, with adjustments made depending on weather and other factors. The plan would be tried for a six-month test period, then reviewed and tweaked as necessary.
The plan includes use of the 14R/32L diagonal runway, which runs northwest to southeast and is scheduled to be decommissioned in late 2018 as part of the airport's expansion.
It is not a long-term solution -- aviation officials and municipalities will have to go back to the drawing board to come up with a new plan when the east-west 9 Center runway opens in 2020.
