A summer without airplane noise

Enjoy it, because it will be short-lived

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Do you hear that deafening plane noise? Probably not.

That’s because runway 4L-22R at John F. Kennedy International Airport, the takeoff strip for the majority of planes that fly over Malverne, Franklin Square, Lynbrook, Rockville Centre and Valley Stream, has been shut down for construction. According to a report released by the Federal Aviation Administration on May 8, the runway was closed on April 27 and will stay closed through Sept. 21 — giving residents a chance to enjoy a summer outdoors without having to scream over the roar of jet engines.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the runway construction is not only about repairing the existing runway. It’s about building a longer, wider one that can accommodate more and bigger planes like the Airbus 380, a double-deck, wide-body, four-engine behemoth, the world’s largest passenger airliner. And, of course, with more and bigger planes will come more and louder noise.

“Double-deck planes are huge, used for international flights, and they’re going to increase because airlines can get more people on them,” said Larry Hoppenhauer, Malverne’s representative on the Town-Village Aircraft Safety & Noise Abatement Committee. “Orders for these types of planes are going up.”

News of runway 4L-22R’s closing isn’t pleasing many people in North Woodmere, over which the sky is crowded with more plane traffic than ever as a result. “Airplanes are changing their flight patterns because of the runway’s closure,” Hoppenhauer said, “and North Woodmere is taking the brunt of it.”

There is, however, some relief on the distant horizon. The FAA recently announced a multi-year effort to update data on the effects of aircraft noise on communities near airports. In the next two to three months, the FAA will begin contacting residents in neighborhoods surrounding 20 U.S. airports to survey public perceptions of aviation noise throughout the course of a year.

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