If you've ever attended a town council meeting about flight school noise, you've heard it: "There's nothing we can do — the FAA controls the airspace." Your elected officials are largely correct. But "largely" is doing real work in that sentence. The law has gaps, and the gaps matter.
What ANCA is
The Airport Noise and Capacity Act of 1990 (ANCA), codified at 49 U.S.C. §§ 47521–47534, establishes federal primacy over aircraft noise regulation.
Its key operative provision: a state or political subdivision may not adopt or enforce any standard or limitation respecting noise or sonic boom from aircraft, or any requirement for the use of noise abatement measures, unless the federal government approves it through a specific process.
The Supreme Court had established the underlying principle years earlier. In City of Burbank v. Lockheed Air Terminal (1973), the Court held that a city's airport curfew ordinance was preempted by the Federal Aviation Act — local governments could not restrict when aircraft operated, even to address noise. ANCA codified and extended this into a comprehensive framework.
What ANCA covers — and what it doesn't
ANCA was built to govern commercial air carrier operations. Its noise standards — the Stage 2, Stage 3, Stage 4, Stage 5 certification requirements in 14 C.F.R. Part 36 — apply to large transport-category aircraft: commercial jets, large turboprops, certain business jets.
What ANCA covers
- Commercial air carrier operations (Part 121, Part 135)
- Large transport-category aircraft (jets, large turboprops)
- Noise certification: Stage 2 through Stage 5 standards
- Airport access restrictions on these aircraft types
- Noise compatibility plans (Part 150) for these operations
What ANCA does NOT cover
- Small piston aircraft (Cessna 172, Piper Cherokee, etc.)
- Part 91 general aviation — including flight schools
- Aircraft below noise certification thresholds in Part 36
- Noise level standards for GA training operations
- Frequency limits on training circuits over residential areas
This is the tier gap. ANCA preempts local noise ordinances broadly — including ordinances that would restrict piston training aircraft. But the federal noise standards that ANCA was designed to enforce apply narrowly — to jets and large turboprops, not to the piston aircraft causing residential neighborhood noise. Local control is preempted. Federal standards don't fill the space.
In practice: what preemption means
A town cannot enact an ordinance restricting training flights over residential areas during school hours. A county cannot impose a per-flight noise fee on aircraft operators. A planning board cannot condition airport expansion on noise reduction commitments from flight schools. These are preempted for a large majority of aircraft operations by federal law.
ANCA does establish one formal mechanism for noise management: the Part 150 Noise Compatibility Planning program (14 C.F.R. Part 150). Under Part 150, an airport sponsor may conduct a formal noise exposure study and develop a noise compatibility program. If the FAA approves the program, it can include operational measures — the things that ANCA would otherwise prohibit.
The practical test for Part 150 approval is extraordinarily demanding. The process requires FAA approval of both the noise exposure maps and the noise compatibility program. The FAA may reject operational restrictions if it finds they are not "reasonably consistent with obtaining the goal of reducing existing noncompatible land uses and preventing the introduction of additional noncompatible land uses."
Approximately 280 airports have participated in Part 150, and the FAA has approved noise compatibility programs at roughly 205. The critical qualification: mandatory operational restrictions on certificated aircraft must go through a separate, even more demanding process — Part 161. In 35 years of Part 161, the FAA has never approved a mandatory restriction on Stage 3 aircraft. Burbank's nighttime curfew was denied in 2009. LAX's east-departure restriction was denied in 2014. The approval test is effectively impossible to satisfy. Law review analysis ↓
Where the gaps are — what remains possible
ANCA is broad but it has limits. Three categories of action survive preemption:
Gap 1: The piston aircraft exemption
Because small piston aircraft are not subject to Stage 2/3 noise certification under Part 36, and because ANCA's operational restriction framework was built around those certification tiers, there is a meaningful legal argument that some piston-specific restrictions may not fall within the core of ANCA's preemption. This theory has not been definitively adjudicated. It is worth exploring with aviation counsel.
Gap 2: Cost recovery and noise fees
Airports retain some authority to charge fees to aircraft operators — including fees that vary by noise level — provided the fees are non-discriminatory, reasonable, and used for airport-related purposes. This "cost recovery" mechanism creates an economic disincentive for noisier operations without directly restricting them. [Pending research: extent of authority and relevant cases.]
Gap 3: Land use controls
ANCA does not preempt local land use regulation. Zoning, building permits, and sound insulation requirements for structures near airports are within local authority. These don't stop the flights but they do limit the expansion of incompatible uses near the airport and create mechanisms for sound mitigation.
The anti-commandeering limit
One further constitutional constraint on ANCA's reach: the Tenth Amendment's anti-commandeering doctrine, developed in Printz v. United States (1997), limits the federal government's ability to require state and local officials to enforce federal priorities against their own constituents. While Congress can preempt state noise regulation, it cannot compel local governments to affirmatively facilitate federal aviation policy at the expense of their residents.
In practice, this means local governments retain room to advocate, document, and act in ways that do not directly regulate aircraft operations — filing comments in FAA rulemaking proceedings, supporting residents in building evidentiary records, bringing documented noise data to the FAA's attention, and exploring state tort remedies. None of these are preempted. [Note: the extent to which ANCA preempts state nuisance claims by residential property owners is unsettled. Pending research.]
What this means for residents
Your town council is not lying when it says its hands are tied. ANCA is real and its preemption is substantial. The honest description of the situation:
Every channel that survives ANCA preemption — Part 150 comment processes, FAA rulemaking proceedings, state law remedies, congressional advocacy — requires the same input: documented evidence of harm, submitted by real people at real addresses, tied to specific aircraft and operators. That evidence cannot be generated by anecdote. It requires the infrastructure of systematic documentation.
That is the gap overfly is designed to fill.
Sources
- Airport Noise and Capacity Act of 1990, 49 U.S.C. §§ 47521–47534
- City of Burbank v. Lockheed Air Terminal, Inc., 411 U.S. 624 (1973)
- Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997)
- 14 C.F.R. Part 36 — Noise Standards: Aircraft Type and Airworthiness Certification
- 14 C.F.R. Part 150 — Airport Noise Compatibility Planning
- FAA Order 1050.1F — Environmental Impacts: Policies and Procedures
- Jenkins, J.J. (1994). "The Airport Noise and Capacity Act of 1990: Has Congress Finally Solved the Aircraft Noise Problem?" Journal of Air Law and Commerce, 59(4), 1023. ↓ Download PDF
- Primary sources: Friends of the East Hampton Airport, Inc. v. Town of East Hampton, 841 F.3d 133 (2d Cir. 2016); City of Naples Airport Authority v. FAA, 409 F.3d 431 (D.C. Cir. 2005); FAA Record of Approval, Bob Hope/Burbank Airport (Oct. 30, 2009, denied); FAA Record of Approval, LAX (Nov. 7, 2014, denied).