Metropolitan King County Council Chair Larry Phillips said that making King County International Airport (KCIA) a good neighbor for the communities under its flight path was one of his top priorities during the Council’s annual lobbying trip to Washington, D.C.

“It’s no fun to be repeatedly awakened by low-flying cargo planes booming over your bedroom at 4 a.m.,” said Phillips. “For nearly a decade the Magnolia community has implored the Federal Aviation Administration and our members of Congress to take the steps needed to divert night flights over Elliott Bay, where no one is sleeping. I worked with Magnolia resident and retired pilot Dan Labriola to identify a feasible Elliott Bay approach. We’ve done the Part 150 Study. The King County Council and Executive Ron Sims approved the study recommendations. I secured funding for the equipment at the airport, and now we need to get this implemented.”

Phillips talked with FAA officials and Senator Patty Murray’s staff during this month’s trip to Washington, D.C. on the continuing efforts at both the county and federal levels to reduce noise at the King County airport, commonly known as Boeing Field.

Phillips has worked to reduce the impact of take-offs and landings on neighborhoods underneath the KCIA flight path since 1995. In 2002, the County Council approved a KCIA noise-reduction plan developed by the Part 150 citizen advisory committee in cooperation with the FAA. Those recommendations included bringing in planes landing at KCIA over Elliott Bay instead of residential areas. Phillips has traveled to the nation’s capital over the past two years to ask the FAA and members of Washington’s congressional delegation for assistance in implementing the plan.

“The FAA set up numerous hoops for us to jump through,” said Phillips. “We’ve hopped through each one with stacks of documentation under our arms. We’ve met every requirement. Now Magnolia residents just need help from our Senators and Congressional leaders to get the FAA to implement the needed changes to bring those late-night planes over Elliott Bay, not Magnolia.”