Dear Friends,
You may have received a communication from Vice-Mayor Lydia Kou that the City has contracted a consultant to review “proposed GBAS innovative approaches.” GBAS is a new landing system investment by SFO and airlines that introduces new precision features intended to increase airport capacity, and produce other benefits for the FAA and airlines.
The term “innovative approaches” refers to GBAS approaches with the potential to also reduce noise. During a July 2021 FAA workshop, SFO President Ivar Sartero used the term “esoteric” for the innovatives - ultimately the terminology refers to timing, feasibility, and likelihood of the FAA implementing a new approach. We are looking forward to the City’s evaluation of the “innovatives” but are alarmed that in four years of the GBAS project, the FAA is so far only supporting GBAS “overlay” approaches which would increase noise, and by divorcing the “overlays” from the “innovatives” the project possibly violates national environmental policy.
The City of Palo Alto committed in 2019 to review all airspace procedures that could negatively affect Palo Alto, to not miss the 60 day deadline to respond to the FAA. The GBAS project should be halted until the FAA supports noise reduction approaches. There is no rush to increase capacity at SFO but if the FAA and SFO are so insistent, can they explain why they aren't implementing noise-reducing approaches now? We have been alerting Council, Roundtables, SFO, Representative Eshoo, the FAA, and City staff since Spring 2021 about the GBAS overlays/innovatives issues; the urgency to engage the FAA, as well as the public which stands to be affected. This week we asked the City to confirm with expert attorneys when the 60 days deadline is for the overlays and to alert residents about what course the City is taking about the GBAS overlays.
As noted in our email to the City, navigation charts for the GBAS overlays are on the FAA’s IFP Gateway (an FAA website with a disclaimer that states, "The website is intended only for an aeronautical audience who can provide technical aeronautical comments"). The copy of an “initial” environmental review (IER) that the FAA disclosed thanks to a citizen FOIA request fulfilled on January 21 is here. The FAA makes it extremely difficult to track environmental publications and we are grateful for citizens who are doing this due diligence. Otherwise, we don’t yet see the FAA’s "final" order or environmental declaration for the overlays, and are looking to the City’s response.