Napa County Airport officials expect plans for a possible “fair weather” alternative flight path, an effort to curb airplane noise over the city of Napa, will be ready for consideration by the Federal Aviation Administration by the end of this year.

Airport manager Mark Witsoe told the Napa County Airport Advisory Commission on Monday, April 6, that contractor Coffman Associates Inc. expects to carry out public engagement on the draft flight path procedures in September or October this year, after bringing the plans to Napa County and the FAA.

At around that time, Witsoe said, the county will also hold meetings and roll out an engagement website from Australia-based Social Pinpoint, allowing for a wider range of community feedback.

“Countywide communications felt like they could get more engagement and understand the analytics better by working with a platform that is very focused on public participation,” Witsoe said.

That effort could alleviate continued community frustrations around airplane noise — largely from residents in the East Napa area — that arose last year after a new flight path was created for the airport’s runway 19R in 2024.

The path is the airport’s fully guided landing procedure, a structured, instrument-guided approach intended to safely guide pilots to the runway even amid low visibility. But the path sends pilots south through the Napa Valley, over the Soscol Avenue area, sending noise down below.

The Napa County Board of Supervisors in November approved adding $185,000 to a contract with Coffman to study whether an alternative flight path for clear weather could be added — if FAA officials agree to it — giving pilots another landing choice and mitigating noise from the current path.

At the same time, the airport commission and its ad hoc noise working group are exploring other ways to curb noise — including a “fly neighborly” program that would encourage quieter approaches. Witsoe said at the meeting that airport and county staff are taking the noise issue seriously.

“It has our focus and attention,” Witsoe said. “We’re not trying to minimize this in any way. We’re spending real money and engaging a lot of expert people.”

You can reach Staff Writer Edward Booth at 707-521-5281 or edward.booth@pressdemocrat.com.