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CHARLOTTE, NC — A once quiet neighborhood, drowning in a sea of noise.
Residents living along Mallard Creek say they are being swarmed by low-flying aircraft heading to Charlotte-Douglas. Now they’re taking their concerns to the city, and hoping to be heard.
“What’s changed? What’s going on? Why is the frequency increasing for the approaching planes going to the airport?” says University City resident Rick Sims.
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The number of people travelling from Charlotte-Douglas International has doubled in the last decade.
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“I have noticed it getting progressively worse,” says Sims.
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Sims lives 12 miles from the airport, but right under the approach pattern.Β
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“When you want to go out on your deck and drink a glass of wine and hear the birds, if you have a jet it just kind of kills it,” says Robin Faison, who lives in University City.
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“When they’re in their full swing, they’re coming over every minute,” says Rick Sims. “So it’s really almost impossible to even have a conversation.”
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Robin Faison feels the problem is the flight pattern.
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“If you call the Charlotte airport, they’ll tell you no, it’s going over I-85,” says Faison. “But it’s not the case.”
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“I do not live on 85, and I do not hear the traffic from 85,” says Sims. “But the jets are flying directly over my home.”
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And there’s the amount of traffic overhead heading to runway 5-23.
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“Now the airport tells me that we get 60 percent of the approaching traffic,” says Sims. “That’s just not right.”
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These neighbors have done their homework. They’re asking city leaders and the airport to move some traffic to the other three runways.
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“If you disperse the air traffic, you would have less of that red lining overhead,” says Faison. “We want to have a fair, equitable approach. We don’t want to shut down the airport. We realize that we are going to hear some jets, and that’s just part of being in a big city.”
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Concerned residents are holding a community meeting with city and airport representatives Thursday, June 26th at 7:00 p.m. at the University YMCA on Old Mallard Creek Road.
