NINTH CIRCUIT DENIES CITY OF L.A. PETITION TO ROLL BACK BURBANK FLIGHT PATH SHIFT

摘要

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit On Oct. 26 denied a petition by the City of Los Angeles seeking review of an FAA letter allegedly showing that the agency had failed to follow environmental and administrative procedures before changing departure procedures at Hollywood Burbank Airport. The Court held that the FAA letter it was asked to review “is not a final order, so we lack jurisdiction to review it.” The problem of identifying what constitutes an FAA final order, especially in the airspace context where agency action is often informal, is much broader than this case, attorney Peter Kirsch, who aided the City of Los Angeles in filing its petition, told ANR. In fact, the lesson FAA may take from the Ninth Circuit’s ruling, Kirsch said wryly, is that is it better to act informally in airspace issues and avoid issuing final orders that can be challenged. He stressed that it is extremely difficult for the public to get access to FAA decision-making documents and there have been very few successful challenges of FAA final orders.