April 2022 DCA Noise Meeting Summary
Meeting Highlights
MWAA Update: Air service recovery continues as we move through a very busy spring break season. Airports were busy with leisure travel, business travel still lags though. Every weekend since mid-March DCA has exceeded 100k passengers Fri – Sun. Still not to the 2019 pre-pandemic levels — airport averaging 80% of 2019 levels.
Montgomery County Representative Ken Hartman: The North of Airport Committee has met, had a design workshop, had a public meeting. Discussed the benefits ABCx2 has brought to the group and will present their recommendations regarding departures tonight. The committee recognized you can move things laterally and have benefits that are not noticeable to the human ear; there is a push and pull between a procedure with no benefit for folks on the ground.
Jim Allerdice, the Arlington/Montgomery County consultant, presented the various lateral and vertical departure flight path alternatives that were considered for departures flying northward from DCA. At the conclusion of this presentation the North of the Airport Committee put forward Recommendations #23 and #24 for the Working Group’s consideration
Recommendation 23: The CWG recommendations that MWAA and FAA add NADP-1 [Noise Abatement Departure Procedure 1] as the preferred noise abatement climb profile for Runway 1 departures to the NOISE section of the Airport/Facility Director for DCA. Additionally, the CWG recommends that this and other recommended noise abatement measures be address through periodic, direct engagement with the air carriers operating at DCA to ensure airline awareness.
Recommendation 24: The Working Group recommends adding a crossing restriction to the ALEEX waypoint of at or above 5,000 feet to ensure aircraft are as high as possible when crossing ALEEX
Both recommendations received unanimous approval and will be forwarded to the FAA for their consideration.
