HEBRON — The last time the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport prepared to build a runway, officials made two promises about its operations and noise levels.

        Almost 11 years later, those promises to limit takeoffs to the north over western Hamilton County — made in legal agreements with Delhi Township and the Sisters of Charity — have held up, according to an Enquirer analysis of recent data of takeoffs and landings.

        Airport officials say the results show they can be trusted when they say that a planned fourth runway will be used primarily for landings, which for the most part are quieter than takeoffs.

        Yet to runway opponents, especially those in Hamilton County, the numbers don't mean anything.

INFOGRAPHICS

• Runway workload • Sound specifications

        More than a decade after failing to stop the last runway, they acknowledge each plane is quieter because of new federal regulations. But they say there are more flights than ever, and the cumulative effect has ruined life north and south of the nation's 24th-busiest airport.

        Part of it stems from their continued insistence that they were betrayed by the sisters, who settled with the airport first.

        Delhi later signed an identical agreement, but not until after a failed lawsuit against the airport, with many critics claiming the sisters' agreement took away any leverage the community had.

        But no matter what the reason, they say the new runway will make things even worse, and don't believe airport officials when it comes to its potential future use.

        “The process is to some extent a sham,” Delhi Township administrator Joe Morency says. “The airport has kept its word on the agreement, and they say that the areas being impacted are shrinking. But those lines (sound contours which specify how loud an area is) really do not represent reality. Reality is people sitting on their porches seeing more airplanes flying over them, and the increased traffic forcing them inside.”

More to north

        The Enquirer analysis was done in advance of expected federal approval for a new 8,000-foot north-south runway and a 2,000-foot extension to the western end of the airport's east-west runway. That approval is likely later this month.

        The project is expected to cost $230 million, including land purchases and soundproofing. Barring difficulties securing funding, the runways should open in 2005.

        The analyzed data included all takeoffs and landings between November 2000 and January 2001 — the last time the airport was at full capacity. That was before the three-month Comair pilots' strike and then the effects of the Sept. 11 attacks on air traffic.

        It also looked at airport operations in 1991, the first full year of operations under a layout that's still used today. It's the layout put in place after the addition of a new runway, which in turn spawned the two agreements that limit takeoffs to the north and gives the parties the right to sue over noise if it exceeds a certain limit every three months.

        The analysis showed that:

        • 85 percent of takeoffs left either off the two south runways or the west runway between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. (daytime as defined by the airport).

        • Airport noise rarely exceeds the levels agreed to in 1988 with Delhi Township and the Sisters of Charity, who operate the College of Mount St. Joseph. Those levels are more stringent than the federal standard.

        • 66.9 percent of all takeoffs after 10 p.m. departed to the less-inhabited west, including the late-night flights by DHL Worldwide Express.

        Yet the data also showed that use of the north runways during this period was higher than in 1991. Takeoffs are up 41.2 percent overall since 1991 at the airport, and the planes need somewhere to go.

        Still, the agreement is putting constraints on the airport, especially because of its wind restrictions.

        Planes generally take off into the wind. Under the federal standard, if a headwind is at a minimum of 5 knots (about 5.8 mph), planes must take off into that wind to avoid possible problems with crosswinds.

        The local agreements for northern takeoffs raise the requirement to 7 knots (about 8.1 mph) or more from the north. That means fewer flights can use the northern runways for departures because the winds don't get up to 7 knots as often as they do 5 knots.

        “We would be on northern departures some more than we are now if it wasn't for that (wind) limit,” says James Morse, a Cincinnati air traffic controller, speaking on behalf of the local branch of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. “What the difference between some and a lot is, I don't know, but there would be an increase in north departures.”

Landings only, or not

        The limits combined with increased traffic mean fewer places for planes to land, airport director of aviation Bob Holscher and locallybased air traffic controllers say. Because the two northern runways are basically off-limits to takeoffs, that leaves three for departures — two to the south and one to the west.

        In turn, that only leaves two runways for landings — both from the north — because planes landing from the east cross the path of those planes on a north/south flow.

        “And the arrivals is where we're getting backed up,” Mr. Holscher says.

        That's where the new runway comes in. Because it is far enough away from the other two north/south strips (4,300 feet), it would be able to operate independently.

        Even the Federal Aviation Administration says the runway will be used for arrivals, according to its final environmental impact study released in September. The report says the new runway would be used for southbound landings by 26.1 percent of the mainline passenger jets during the day, and by 24.5 percent of the regional jets or business jets that are landing during the day. Nighttime landing usage from either direction dropped to 1 percent or below for all aircraft types from either direction.

        And 1 percent or less of any type of plane would use the runway for takeoffs in either direction at any time of day, the study says.

        The FAA also designated a much smaller noise contour, or area where the noise would meet or exceed federal limits, around the new runway than for the airport's existing runways, primarily because of its use for landings.

        The reasons given for the planned new runway's anticipated use for landings is that at 8,000 feet, it would be too short for larger planes to use for takeoffs, and the airport already has three takeoff runways.

        The new runway's distance from the terminals also makes it inconvenient for takeoffs.

        Departing planes taxiing out for takeoff would have to cross other active runways, says H. Michael Brown, the FAA's acting air traffic manager at the Cincinnati airport, a much more complicated procedure than getting arriving flights back to the terminal.

Exceptions possible

        No one will promise that the runway will be used solely for landings. They say that if another runway is closed, or if weather conditions require takeoffs either to the north or south off the runway, the new strip could be used. Those exceptions also excuse the airport from the legal agreements if they create higher noise levels in Delhi Township or at the college.

        Critics worry about more than the exceptions. Looking toward the future, they say traffic will only continue to build, putting pressure on how the airport operates.

        “We seem to be the only airport in the country that can build on a regular basis, and that will only attract more traffic,” says Delhi Township resident Penny Dieck, who headed the anti-runway group Citizens Advocating Proposed Runway Alternatives in the late 1980s. “So would I trust anything they might say now about what might happen 10 years from now? No way.”

        Airport noise abatement manager Barb Schempf says that even if more traffic is added or if the runway is used for takeoffs, the impact won't be as much since all jets at the airport now are equipped with Stage 3 engines, which meet stricter FAA guidelines for noise.

        That includes the Canadair Regional Jets operated by Erlanger-based airline Comair. Those planes currently account for the majority of the operations at the airport, and are considered by aviation experts the quietest commercial jet in service. They didn't even exist when the last runway opened.

        In addition, the airport's major tenant, Delta Air Lines, is phasing out its older planes — including the venerable Boeing 727s, considered the noisiest plane in the fleet.

        The Enquirer analysis showed that 81.1 percent of the current operations are by jets, with a majority of those by regional jets, compared with 50 percent propeller planes in 1991.

        “We have seen an overall reduction in the size of noise contours because of the change in aircraft type and the phaseout of (older and noisier) Stage 2 aircraft,” Ms. Schempf says.

Boon or bane?

        Delta officials, who would not comment on the potential use of the new runway, have yet to endorse the project.

        But David Soaper, Comair's vice president/safety, security and system operations says the new concrete strip is “absolutely needed, if we grow at all, and there's pretty much no doubt that we're going to be growing.”

        Mr. Holscher says that despite anti-airport sentiment, the facility has a good track record when it comes to providing the community with information and following through on its promises.

        “We've really stressed public involvement a lot more this time than last time,” Mr. Holscher says of the approval process for the last runway, which opened in 1991. “I think we've done very well with what we've laid out.”

        But that doesn't matter to critics such as Dusty Rhodes, the Hamilton County auditor and Delhi Township resident who has been a longtime critic of the airport and of the agreement with the Sisters of Charity, which he calls a “backroom deal that was a sell-out to the entire community of Delhi and all of western Hamilton County.

        “We could have stopped it if it wasn't for the nuns cutting their own deal,” Mr. Rhodes said. “And now, I don't care what the numbers show ... it will only be a matter of time before all of western Hamilton County will be unlivable.”

        Sister Mary Hagedorn, a member of the Sisters of Charity leadership council who specializes in airport relations, denies that claim. She says her order's agreement, reached before Delhi Township's, made things better for all the community.

        “And I would say the airport has been very faithful about everything involved, and I trust them,” Sister Hagedorn says. “But both we and the airport have spent a lot of time working with the community, trying to get them to understand that this is better than it could be. And no matter what, people still don't think so, and they are entitled to that opinion.”

Diversions account for most complaints

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