O'Hare Runway Rotation Plan Test Program

A 6-month test for the overnight Runway Rotation Plan will take place beginning in early summer 2016. In order to assess whether the Rotation is providing the intended benefits, we need to hear from you! Suburban O'Hare Commission (SOC) experts will continue to analyze flight paths and noise monitor data, but this entire program is designed to bring noise relief to residents. If you’re feeling a reduced impact from the noise, we need to know so that we can make the rotation permanent. If you’re not feeling any noise relief, we need to know that too, so that we find out what’s not working.

Survey

For the duration of the 6-month Rotation Plan test, the Suburban O’Hare Commission will host a survey which residents are encouraged to visit on a weekly basis to report their feedback on overnight noise conditions. This data will be aggregated on a weekly basis by location and compared with the actual flight paths used during that time period to determine whether operations are having unanticipated impacts on residential neighborhoods.

Fly Quiet Test 2

• Overnight Runway Rotation Plan Updated for 12-Week Test Beginning April 30, 2017.
• On March 10, the O’Hare Noise Compatibility Commission approved a second Fly Quiet Runway Rotation Test for a period of 12 weeks, beginning Sunday, April 30. The Fly Quiet Runway Rotation Test 2 features 10 total configurations in a 12- week rotation.

Issues

Five of the configurations were modified from the original test based in order to address several issues:

• Two configurations were changed to address FAA feedback that the old configurations resulted in ground conflict between movements by taxiing aircraft and arriving/departing runways.
• Two configurations were changed to reduce heavy usage of runway 33 for departures and runway 22 for arrivals.
• One configuration was changed in order to reduce the number of mixed-use/single runway configurations, which cause lower compliance with the configurations by air traffic controllers.

The new configurations (K to O) are listed in green in the schedule below. Information on the old configurations (C, D, E, G, J) can be found at the Runway Rotation Test website.

Goals

The goals of the original runway rotation test remain the same for the second test: provide short-term relief; reduce impacts to the highest impacted communities and provide predictability by publishing a rotation schedule that allows residents to predict periods of relief to the extent possible.

Test Scope

The Runway Rotation Test 2 has been designed to:

• Alternate east and west flow
• Avoid consecutive community impacts
• Avoid ground conflicts with taxing aircraft
• Reduce heavy usage of particular runways
• Reduce the number of mixed use/single runway configurations
• Reduce the use of Runway 10L/28R
• Include Runway 15/33