Connecticut sues FAA over Northeast airspace plan
HARTFORD, Connecticut (Reuters) - Connecticut has filed a legal challenge to a new U.S. commercial airspace plan that would send more planes over the state, Connecticut officials said on Thursday.
The Federal Aviation Administration plan issued in September would try to cut down on delays by rerouting landing and take-off patterns at the Northeast's major airports.
Connecticut Gov. Jodi Rell said the plan would send another 150 planes a day over southwestern Connecticut and said an expansion in holding patterns was unacceptable.
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal's lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd District in New York, seeks to rescind the new paths and accuses the FAA of failing to consider the noise impact.
"We will do everything we can to derail this plan," Rell said in a statement.
In its plan, planes descending to New York's LaGuardia Airport would be redirected over southern Connecticut's Fairfield County and parts of New York at peak travel times. The FAA is targeting 20 percent fewer delays by 2011 compared with what it would have without the changes.
Delays have been a chronic problem for the industry for nearly a decade, interrupted only by the aviation downturn that followed the hijacking attacks of 2001. Past efforts by airlines and regulators to reduce or rearrange schedules at some of the most congested airports have provided temporary relief.
"The FAA rushed to reroute, failing to consider alternatives, and environmental and quality of life impacts," Blumenthal said in a statement.
