On Dec. 19 the FAA implemented part of their $50 million New York/New Jersey/Philadelphia Airspace Redesign program. Airspace redesign began in 2000 with various stages allowing input from the public and elected officials. The end results are not good news for Floral Park, New Hyde Park and South Floral Park. I believe the JFK runway construction effort that began in April, 2005, was used as a smoke screen to pre-implement this program. In spite of the fact a representative of the Port Authority told us the construction would have little impact on us because of the existing runway rotation schedules, this had not been the case. Now we are hearing that increased volume is the source of the problem. This is just another excuse from the FAA. We have already heard and painstakingly disproven other excuses for using the Floral Park approaches: whenever it is dark; to avoid the 'black hole' caused by the ocean backdrop; and the planes are suddenly too big to make the turns prior to New Hyde Park and Floral Park.

The following information had been provided to our elected officials with some updates added.

• In spite of the fact that sophisticated all-weather navigational aid exists to guide aircraft on approaches east of us, we continue to receive most bad weather approaches in the eastern part of town using an antiquated ground-based beacon located in the Village of Floral Park. The planes have been compressed closer together with an increase from 30 to 35 arrivals an hour.

• Now most good weather approaches, that used the routes east of us, are being re-routed over our homes. This almost literally doubles our volume of traffic. Although denied by the FAA, I believe this is a major part of their Air Redesign program.

• In concert with the above change, the FAA shifted a parallel runway at JFK from takeoffs to approaches. The FAA blames this change on increasing volume but this does not wash as they always used other community approaches, e.g., South Shore, for these arrivals. This change impacts the western part of the village, which previously only saw arrivals during extreme weather conditions, and initially resulted in up to 15 arrivals an hour for, at times, a total of 50 planes an hour within our borders. I have seen three aircraft arriving at once within the village. Careful examination of the model used by the FAA seems to indicate that the western approach can also handle future growth up to 35 arrivals an hour for a potential total of 70 planes an hour.

The following are recommendations:

1. Contact the 12 municipalities currently suing the FAA to retract Air Redesign and see if there is any benefit in joining their legal actions.

2. Allocate funds to hire an aviation consulting service such as Williams Aviation Consulting to help understand the litany of excuses provided by the FAA. This organization had previously advised us that any major shift in air traffic below the 3,000 feet level requires the FAA to conduct an Environmental Impact Study. The FAA has refused to meet this requirement.

3. Bring to bear the resources of all locally impacted communities to request Congresswoman McCarthy and Senators Clinton and Schumer join Representative Robert Andrews of New Jersey, Representative Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania and Representative Chris Shays of Connecticut (also now impacted) in fighting this program.

We clearly understand the growing volume of air traffic at JFK, but these problems are not solved by shutting down other routes and imposing more hardship on already overburdened communities.

Bob O'Gorman