Fernandina residents pack City Hall over flight school noise as Commission consider next steps

Attorney argues visiting aircraft can be charged $12 per landing while locally based planes remain exempt; city officials dispute financial justification.

Mike Lednovich

Posted Thursday, November 5, 2026 3:20 am

We wholly reject the critique that we chose to live near an airport and thus must live with whatever noise is generated by the airport in perpetuity,”

Suzanne Meyer

By Mike Lednovich

FERNANDINA BEACH — Fernandina Beach city commissioners Wednesday declined to immediately pursue a proposed $12 landing fee for visiting aircraft, instead directing staff to examine voluntary noise restrictions after residents packed City Hall's commission chambers, spilled into the aisles and gathered outside the building to demand relief from repetitive flight school traffic.

The workshop exposed disagreements over the volume of flight training at Fernandina Beach Municipal Airport, whether landing fees could help pay airport expenses and how much authority the city has to control aircraft noise.

Attorney Sorell E. Negro urged commissioners to consider an ordinance charging visiting aircraft $12 per landing, including touch-and-go maneuvers, while exempting planes based at the airport.

But City Manager Sarah Campbell and airport manager Nathan Coyle challenged her argument that the airport's financial condition justified the fee.

Commissioner Genece Minshew said the city first needed financial information from its ongoing airport master plan.

"We cannot just do landing fees because we want to do landing fees," Minshew said.

The commission reached a general consensus directing staff to improve voluntary noise-abatement efforts, examine Sunday and holiday flight training recommendations and investigate whether existing requirements to disclose airport noise to homebuyers are being followed. No landing-fee ordinance was authorized.

Negro, an attorney with Brown Rudnick LLP representing concerned residents, told commissioners that federal aviation law permits airports to charge visiting aircraft while exempting locally based planes.

"The law does not prohibit landing fees," Negro said. "What it prohibits is unjust discrimination, treating similarly situated users differently. And based aircraft and transient aircraft are not similarly situated."

She argued that locally based pilots contribute through hangar leases, tie-down agreements and fuel-related charges, while visiting flight schools repeatedly use the airport without paying landing fees.

Negro cited federal court decisions and FAA Grant Assurance 24, which requires federally funded airports to maintain a fee structure that makes them as financially self-sustaining as possible.

"So this fee doesn't risk our grant obligations; it advances them," she said.

Her proposal calls for a flat $12 fee on transient aircraft, including touch-and-go maneuvers.

When Commissioner Tim Poynter questioned whether those maneuvers would count as landings, Negro said the ordinance should explicitly include them.

She pointed to Kissimmee Gateway Airport, which implemented transient aircraft landing fees in February 2025 while exempting locally based aircraft.

In an Oct. 12 letter to Fernandina Beach commissioners, Kissimmee aviation director Shaun J. Germolus reported that the program had generated approximately $750,000 in additional revenue. He said the money helped support maintenance, equipment purchases and local matching funds for federal and state infrastructure grants.

Negro recommended using cameras to record aircraft registration numbers and bill owners, avoiding a new Florida law restricting the use of ADS-B aircraft tracking information to calculate and collect certain landing fees.

Coyle acknowledged that landing fees are legally possible but said the city must first determine whether it needs the additional revenue.

"The purpose of landing fees is for cost recovery of the airport," Coyle said.

He cautioned that proposing fees during a workshop devoted to aircraft noise could create legal complications if they were interpreted as an attempt to discourage aircraft from using the airport.

Coyle also questioned the economics of the proposed billing system. He said a camera-based system covering the airport's three runways would cost approximately $110,000 under a five-year contract, with annual maintenance of roughly $20,000 after the first year and a vendor collecting 20% of gross revenue.

Kissimmee handles substantially more aircraft traffic than Fernandina Beach, Coyle said, and generates approximately $400,000 to $500,000 annually from landing fees.

He also said information published by Kissimmee indicated aircraft traffic increased after the fees were introduced, suggesting that landing fees should not be assumed to reduce flight activity.

"Landing fees very well may be the right answer to help us fund those needs going forward for the airport," Coyle said, referring to financial requirements being evaluated in the airport master plan.

Suzanne Meyer, representing Amelia Island Airport Solutions, said flight schools based at other airports have dramatically changed conditions for neighborhoods surrounding Fernandina Beach Municipal Airport.

Meyer told commissioners that flight schools account for approximately 80% of airport traffic and that five schools alone generate 49% of activity, according to the group's analysis of the city's Virtower monitoring data.

She reported an increase of approximately 400% in repetitive aircraft operations over the past year.

The group counted 85,693 airport operations between Jan. 1 and Oct. 18, compared with a baseline of 59,628 annual operations used in airport planning.

Meyer described the effects of repeated aircraft noise on residents recovering from illness, working from home and holding outdoor events, including weddings and memorial services.

"We wholly reject the critique that we chose to live near an airport and thus must live with whatever noise is generated by the airport in perpetuity," Meyer said.

She argued that homeowners who purchased property near what had been a relatively quiet general aviation airport could not have anticipated the growth of flight school traffic.

"We are not anti-aviation," Meyer said. "We believe the airport should serve a residential, leisure, resort community that caters to local pilots' needs while maintaining safety and compatibility with the many large residential neighborhoods that surround the airport."

The group asked the city to appoint non-aviation residents to the airport master plan's Technical Advisory Committee and create a community advisory roundtable to represent affected neighborhoods.

Coyle challenged the group's interpretation of airport operations data, saying some Virtower categories overlap and could be counted twice.

"We're not at 85,000 currently in the year," Coyle said. "We're likely going to end the year at 80,000 landings and takeoffs."

He acknowledged that earlier airport estimates of approximately 60,000 annual operations were probably too low because the monitoring system had gaps in its records.

Coyle also cautioned that aircraft tracking websites sometimes display pressure altitude rather than actual altitude, potentially producing misleading impressions about how low an aircraft is flying.

His own analysis covered July 1 through Oct. 20 and identified approximately 25,000 takeoffs and landings, including 5,900 touch-and-go maneuvers.

Coyle counted 1,861 separate aircraft visits during that period. Approximately 1,600 involved five or fewer touch-and-go maneuvers, while 184 involved more than five, averaging 7.6 maneuvers. Some reached 18.

The figures differ in part because the city and residents used different reporting periods and methods of counting aircraft operations.

Coyle said approximately 85% of touch-and-go activity occurred between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m., while less than 1% occurred during the airport's voluntary quiet hours of 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.

He acknowledged that relatively few early morning or evening flights could still cause substantial disruption because those periods are particularly sensitive for residents.

Airport noise consultant Mike Kotlow of Environmental Science Associates told commissioners that federal law sharply restricts local governments' ability to impose mandatory aircraft operating limits.

He said the Airport Noise and Capacity Act of 1990 established a difficult federal approval process for restrictions on aircraft operations.

"It's extremely challenging and onerous," Kotlow said.

He explained that the FAA evaluates airport noise using an annual average measurement known as the day-night average sound level, or DNL, rather than the noise generated by individual aircraft.

The federal standard generally uses 65 DNL as the threshold for identifying residential land uses incompatible with airport noise.

Kotlow acknowledged that the measurement does not capture the disruption residents experience from repeated individual flights.

"It's not really reflecting what the community is experiencing on an individual event basis," he said.

He said the airport's noise contours remain largely within airport property, making federal approval of mandatory operating restrictions particularly difficult.

That leaves voluntary measures as the city's most practical option, Kotlow said.

The airport already recommends quiet hours between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., no more than five touch-and-go maneuvers per training visit and preferred flight patterns intended to reduce noise over residential areas.

Kotlow suggested extending the recommended quiet hours to begin at 8 p.m. and continue until 7:30 or 8 a.m. He also proposed considering voluntary restrictions on flight training during Sundays and holidays.

He cautioned against adopting too many guidelines, saying pilots might become confused and ignore them.

Commissioner Joyce Tuten asked whether citizen volunteers could help airport staff communicate with flight schools and monitor compliance.

Coyle welcomed the possibility, including recognizing pilots who follow the guidelines rather than contacting only those who exceed them.

The workshop also produced a direct disagreement over whether the airport depends on taxpayer subsidies.

Negro cited the city's audited financial statements showing approximately $3.15 million in cumulative operating losses from fiscal 2022 through fiscal 2025, along with approximately $1.17 million in General Fund transfers during those years.

"Four years, four losses, four taxpayer transfers," Negro said.

Campbell disputed the characterization of those transfers as subsidies needed to keep the airport operating.

She said the city makes payments to the airport for obligations associated with property used for Fire Station 2 and the Humane Society.

"The contributions are not to keep them afloat; they are because we owe them that money," Campbell said.

Coyle said the approximately $295,000 annual transfer pays principal and interest on debt the airport incurred for the city's fire station project, in addition to lease-related payments.

"Our airport sustains itself off of rates and charges," Coyle said.

Campbell said the airport had approximately $9.2 million in combined revenue and cash balances in the current budget and operates without taxpayer subsidies.

Negro responded that the audited statements also showed declining cash balances and argued that repeatedly drawing down reserves could threaten long-term financial sustainability.

Campbell countered that spending reserves on planned capital improvements does not necessarily indicate financial trouble.

"If we have capital improvement dollars, we're doing what we're supposed to do with the money by spending it down to improve the facilities," she said.

The audited operating losses cited by Negro include depreciation, a noncash accounting expense. The city's fiscal 2025-26 budget report also shows a $296,438 General Fund transfer, but city officials said the payment covers debt and lease obligations rather than an operating subsidy.

The workshop did not resolve whether additional landing-fee revenue is necessary to meet the airport's future financial requirements.

Minshew said the city should complete the airport master plan, including its noise contours and financial analysis, before deciding whether landing fees are justified.

She also suggested that a separate noise study might be appropriate after the master plan is completed.

"I have not seen yet a clear path forward on a revenue requirement, which will come out of the master plan," Minshew said.

Tuten suggested staff research how many Florida airports recommend avoiding flight training on Sundays and holidays.

She asked for more information about the city's existing airport-noise disclosure requirements for people purchasing or leasing property near the airport.

Coyle acknowledged that some homeowners had told him they did not recall receiving the required written disclosures. He said the city needed to determine whether the rules were being followed.

The commission ended the workshop with general direction to improve education and compliance with voluntary noise procedures and return with more information as the master plan progresses.

Comments

1 comment on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here

JohnFindlay1

Good article on a meeting that was filled with interesting information. Many of my questions were discussed, such as whether landing fees for flight schools were allowed, whether other airports charged them, and whether flight school traffic had remained constant or whether it had significantly increased over the past few years. I hope the city can reach some decisions that satisfy a majority of those affected.

6 minutes ago Report this