In a modest step to address noise complaints, federal aviation officials plan to redirect some of the planes that approach Logan International Airport over the coastal town of Hull out over the ocean.

The change is the first following a study on decreasing Logan’s air traffic noise by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It will affect a small number of the more than 500 planes that land in Boston daily and won’t help the hundreds of residents in Milton, Roslindale, Medford, and other places who have complained about air traffic over their neighborhoods.

But federal officials are studying other recommendations from the MIT study that could help residents in those towns, including slowing the speed of planes as they accelerate and climb after takeoff, which researchers believe would quiet things substantially on the ground.

Although slower takeoffs may be “theoretically a benefit,’’ they are still untested, and further research could take months, if not years, said James Hileman, a chief scientist with the Federal Aviation Administration.

Officials said they had already been considering rerouting air traffic away from Hull when MIT brought it up. The plan “had a clear path to being implemented,’’ said the FAA’s community involvement manager, Julie Marks.

In July, the FAA will publish a new flight path for airlines that is expected to direct more planes about 1 mile north of Hull as they approach Runway 33L at Logan. It’s modeled on a route developed years ago by JetBlue, Logan’s most-frequent carrier, but is based on new technology that officials hope will make it be used more often.

It’s difficult to say how many planes will be rerouted, said R. John Hansman, the MIT professor who led the study, because some airlines may not have the equipment to lock onto the new path.

Officials at the Massachusetts Port Authority, which operates Logan, said that initially, planes arriving later in the night will be more likely to use the route. “But then, one could see it being used more over time,’’ said Flavio Lee, Massport’s director of aviation planning.

In 2015, according to MIT, 71 planes a day approached over Hull, out of the 511, on average, that landed daily at Logan. Hull will continue to have some planes overhead. Still, the new route is welcome news, said Hull’s town manager, Philip Lemnios.

“It will decrease the load at night, the time of the international flights that really disturb people’s sleep,’’ he said. “And it’s not coming at the expense of another community.’’

Logan’s air-traffic noise has been an issue for decades, but complaints jumped after 2013, when GPS technology steered jets into Boston over narrower approach areas, concentrating more traffic over certain residential areas.

Residents of other neighborhoods affected by Logan traffic said they’re pleased with the change over Hull, even if it won’t affect them.

“Pushing the flights farther away from Hull demonstrates they can use the tools to design a route that gets the traffic away from population areas,’’ said Roslindale resident Alan Wright, a member of the Massport community advisory committee.

But he looks forward to the day when other measures, such as slower plane speeds, would benefit more communities.

Meanwhile, the MIT team — funded by both the FAA and Massport — is working on a second study of options, which could include the more contentious idea of dispersing routes over more communities again to take the burden off neighborhoods directly under the existing flight paths.

Adam Vaccaro can be reached at adam.vaccaro@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter at @adamtvaccaro.