It’s a great news story for Delta.
That’s according to Frederic Gagnon, Operations Manager for NAV CANADA, during a presentation to city council on March 27, providing an update on proposed new flight paths and landing approach procedures for aircraft arriving at Vancouver International Airport (YVR).
The Vancouver Airspace Modernization Project (VAMP), initiated in 2018, will see changes to aircraft flight movements over residential neighbourhoods in the Lower Mainland.
The goal of the review is to prepare for projected future aircraft movement growth, balancing the needs of stakeholders while sustaining improved safety, he said.
In collaboration with the Vancouver Airport Authority, NAV CANADA’s airspace review's focus included mitigating aircraft noise impacts over Delta by shifting aircraft approaches away from more populated areas.
A member of the YVR Aeronautical Noise Management Committee, the City of Delta requested during NAV CANADA’s stakeholder input, that aircraft routing be shifted to areas such as oceans, highways and industrial and commercial areas.
No changes are proposed for departure routes or aircraft operating under visual flight rule, however.
Gagnon said scattering the departure noise is considered better for communities, as opposed to penalizing certain neighbourhoods.
“Unfortunately, we’re not changing that 3 a.m. departure that’s going to go over the Pacific. This project was designed more on the approach phase with less focus on the departure phase. That doesn’t mean in the future we won’t be looking at departures. We actually made a conscious decision not to touch departures because we had the opportunity to implement that same sort of very precise departures, but we felt, along with our partners at YVR, that departures are the biggest noise generator,” he explained.
“If you implement very strict departure gates, that means that point with the most noise, you’re sending the planes over a single point every time, which means the people living under that single point will eat all of that noise, versus today where the departure routes are very scattered.”
Noting the changes will also see more utilization of GPS and other navigation services, Gagnon said one of the highlights in the noise reduction plan is use of continuous decent procedures.
Gagnon said a report detailing NAV CANADA’s recent public consultations is now being prepared. Some adjustments may be implemented to address public feedback. The changes would be implemented by late fall or early winter.
According to an earlier City of Delta report, the aircraft approach route and other changes should result in either no noticeable increase in current aircraft noise over Delta or even improvement over areas.
