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Eager to turn down the volume in the sky above Palo Alto Airport and along crowded flight paths, city officials are banking on a new software to identify and notify pilots that flout local rules about noise abatement.
The city installed the software system, which is known as 1200.Aero, in March 2024 and has been testing it in an area around the airplane runway that makes up about 90% of the airplane’s operations, according to a report from the Department of Public Works. The software relies on geofencing to monitor aircraft in an area above East Palo Alto and to notify pilots when they fail to follow the airport’s noise abatement procedures. These include requests that pilots departing from the runway climb over the Bay and get to the area of Dumbarton bridge before turning left to fly south or to the Peninsula.
The guidelines also request that pilots keep an altitude of at least 1,500 feet when crossing U.S. Highway 101.
The goal of the new program is to reduce airplane noise, a source of headache for residents who live near the airport and under designated plane pathways and for city officials who have been hearing about the problem for years but who have struggled to do anything about it.
Federal regulations represent another barrier. The Federal Aviation Administration bars airports from enforcing noise abatement rules. The city’s noise abatement procedures are thus requests rather than orders.
That said, most pilots do as they’re told, according to Public Works data. The bustling airport had 150,123 operations in 2024 and 99.93% of them complied with the noise abatement rules. The city has observed a total of 35 violations that year, including seven in the fourth quarter of the year.
“Airport staff makes every effort to talk to all pilots that violate these procedures, but it is difficult to talk to all transient pilots about noise abatement procedures,” the report states.
The new software currently applies to an area over East Palo Alto, where it tracks aircraft movements that do not conform with local procedures. According to the new report, additional geofencing will be applied over Palo Alto and Menlo Park “as testing progresses to ensure comprehensive monitoring.”
The issue of airplane noise took on greater urgency in 2014, when the Federal Aviation Administration rolled out its NextGen Initiative, which established three arrival routes over Palo Alto. At around that time, the city became inundated with complaints about the airplanes constantly flying over neighborhoods, disrupting sleep and disturbing work habits. In 2021, the city tried to join the SFO Roundtable, a coalition that includes San Francisco and various San Mateo County cities, but the club didn’t want Palo Alto as a member.
The issues at Palo Alto Airport are different in that they pertain to smaller planes that depart from and land in the Baylands facility rather than flight paths involving SFO. But while the issue has remained on the council’s radar, the city has had few options for solutions aside from requests for voluntary cooperation from area pilots. To achieve that, the city has begun to hold monthly meetings with FAA air traffic controllers and with airplane users to discuss noise abatement procedures and “identify effective strategies for communicating with both based and transient pilots,” according to a report approved by Public Works Director Brad Eggleston.
Airport staff have also been participating in regional meetings with managers of other airport managers to “explore a centralized website to consolidate noise abatement procedures throughout the Bay Area.”
“The goal of this initiative is to improve pilot access to noise-related information and promote greater awareness of recommended procedures across the region,” Eggleston’s report states. “This effort remains an ongoing project and collaboration will continue with participating airports.”
The report notes that the local airport remains one of the busiest in the Bay Area, with just over 150,123 takeoffs and landings in 2024, a slight increase from 2023 and roughly around the average of operations since 2015. To deal with the growing demand and achieve consistency with the FAA guidelines, Palo Alto officials had been working on a long-term plan for the airport that explored several options for extending the airport’s sole runway.
The City Council paused the effort in September 2024 after heavy criticism from residents of Palo Alto, East Palo Alto -– and, to a lesser extent, Menlo Park – about the proposed expansion’s potential impacts on both the Baylands ecosystem and air traffic over residential neighborhoods. A coalition of nonprofit groups that included the Sierra Club and Santa Clara Valley Bird Alliance were among the opponents of the expansion, as they made clear in a letter they submitted to the council.
The council ultimately directed city staff to explore alternatives for making the airport safer and more environmentally friendly without expanding the runway or adding to the noise in the sky.
“I want to see us transition into a more sustainable airport that is healthier and safer, particularly for adjacent communities,” Council member Pat Burt said at the September 2024 discussion.
The story has been amended to more clearly distinguish between the noise issues relating to SFO and those relating to Palo Alto Airport.
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