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A key part of the effort to reduce noise over neighborhoods from large jets flying into Lakeland Linder International Airport is about to go into effect.
Airport officials announced today that the Federal Aviation Administration has approved their proposal to route incoming air traffic over the Polk Parkway – more than three years after the city first submitted plans.
Why it’s important: Residents who live near flight paths have complained about noise from Boeing 767 and 737 freighters since Amazon opened its air cargo hub at Lakeland’s airport in July 2020. The new approach means fewer neighborhoods will be directly under flight paths.
Amazon currently supports 13 arrivals and 13 departures at Lakeland Linder daily. Avelo Airlines is ramping up passenger service in Lakeland, and will offer 16 weekly arrivals and 16 departures of its Boeing 737s by next month.
The route: Under a plan approved by the FAA, aircraft approaching Lakeland Linder International Airport from the east would:
- Fly over the northern tip of Lake Hancock
- Continue above the Polk Parkway starting a little west of U.S. 98 South
- Curve slightly southward between Cleveland Heights Boulevard and Florida Avenue
- Continue in a roughly straight line to the airport. The map above shows two slightly different paths into the airport depending on the aircraft’s instrumentation.
Pilots may deviate a bit to the north or south of the lines on the map, depending on conditions, Airport Assistant Director Adam Lunn told Lakeland city commissioners when he announced the FAA approval on Monday.
Timing: The FAA made the “parkway approach” official on Oct. 3 when it published the procedures on its gateway information website; it plans to make new departure procedures effective Oct. 31, Lunn said.
Still, it is unclear when the new approach will go into wide use. The next steps are to set up a meeting in the next few weeks with Tampa Air Control, Amazon and Avelo to ensure all parties are in sync and then to get air controllers trained, Lunn told LkldNow.
“We are going to work with (the airlines) … to make sure that these pilots are requesting these procedures and when they are filing their flight plans, they are filing for these approaches if possible,” he told city commissioners.
Also, weather and the positions of other aircraft could cause some deviations from the new approach, he said.
Bumpy ride: City officials thought their initial application for a new airport approach would be approved an implemented by December 2021. However, the FAA rejected it, asking the airport to use an instrument approach for incoming traffic rather than the visual approach that airport officials had submitted.
The city then approved a $201,150 contract with Hughes Aerospace Corp. of The Woodlands, Texas, to develop the instrument approach and procedures for noise abatement.
That plan was submitted to the FAA in late summer 2022. Since then, there has been a lot of give and take before the plan went through two levels of approvals, Lunn said.
Noise abatement: Another portion of the city’s effort to reduce noise effects was to ask Amazon to use runway 10 to take off to the west and land from the west between 10 p.m. and early morning, when weather allows, Lunn said.
One of the departure routes to be published by the FAA follows an outgoing Parkway path for flights going to the North and Midwest. Flights going to the south and west will fly south past Mulberry and over nearby countryside, under the other departure procedure that will be published later this month.
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As some residents will be getting even more noise with incoming air traffic being routed over the Polk Parkway, it might be a great time to discuss getting noise barriers on the parkway itself. 570 passes through multiple neighborhoods as it makes its way towards I4, and some of these residential areas aren’t exactly far from the Airport. Communities like Oakbridge, Villas by the Lake, and Steeplechase likely get plenty of noise pollution without the added roar of the planes.
If we’re so worried about noise how about enforcing Florida’s law on motor vehicle noise? As it is now there is NONE. BTW, arriving aircraft don’t make a lot of noise compared to departing aircraft. I know… they depart directly over my neighborhood and frequently directly over my home at 1200 ft. Sometimes at 1am in the morning. You can see the rivets on the fuselage. Unfortunately I live west of SR37 so I am in the poor part of town, and we get dumped on regularly.