Bob Hope isn't alone in its effort to prohibit certain flights. In a notice announcing its intention to develop a plan to phase out noisier aircraft at Van Nuys, the agency that runs the city-owned airport warned that the proposal could shift flights to neighboring airports. Environmental studies for this plan are expected to be released this summer.
Burbank's proposal would ultimately face tough questions at the Federal Aviation Administration, which requires airport operators to undergo a long, complicated application process to prove restrictions are necessary. And the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority, which operates Bob Hope, seeks to ban flights by some of the quietest jets operating today -- the first time any airport in the United States has tried to do so.
The FAA sets "the bar very high in order to prove that the restrictions are warranted," wrote Steve Alverson, a Sacramento-based noise consultant, in an e-mail. "The FAA expects that all other methods of noise mitigation/abatement have been exhausted."
An operations swap between Burbank and Van Nuys likely would occur if Bob Hope enacts a proposed ban on takeoffs and landings between 10 p.m. and 6:59 a.m., according to consultants hired by the airport authority.
"Implementation of a curfew at Bob Hope Airport would, as a practical matter, result in nighttime flights shifting to other airports," consultants wrote in the executive summary of the airport's application to the FAA.
"These shifts will have negligible effect on noise and would be too small to be noticeable, compared to the other traffic already projected at those airports, except at Van Nuys," they continued.
Consultants estimate that a ban on overnight flights at Bob Hope would shift 16.4 operations to Van Nuys. Most of these flights are likely to be business jets that officials say are quiet enough to fly into Burbank around the clock now. This would more than double the number of late-night flights at Van Nuys -- which has nighttime noise limits that prohibit some corporate jets from using the facility.
Legislators who represent the San Fernando Valley in Washington decried any shift in flights from Burbank to Van Nuys.
The benefits of allowing several people to operate private jets in the late evening do not outweigh "thousands of people who want to get a good night's sleep," said Rep. Brad Sherman, (D-Sherman Oaks).
