Establishment of United States Area Navigation Route Q-161 and Amendment of United States Area Navigation Routes Q-97, Q-133, Q-437, Q-439, Q-445, and Q-481; Eastern United States

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 71</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2024-2352; Airspace Docket No. 24-AEA-4]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA66</RIN> <SUBJECT>Establishment of United States Area Navigation Route Q-161 and Amendment of United States Area Navigation Routes Q-97, Q-133, Q-437, Q-439, Q-445, and Q-481; Eastern United States</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), DOT. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM). <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This action proposes to establish United States Area Navigation (RNAV) Route Q-161 and amend RNAV Routes Q-97, Q-133, Q-437, Q-439, Q-445, and Q-481 in the eastern United States. This action supports the Northeast Corridor Atlantic Coast Route (NEC ACR) Optimization Project to improve the efficiency of the National Airspace System (NAS). </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before December 12, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Send comments identified by FAA Docket No. FAA-2024-2352 and Airspace Docket No. 24-AEA-4 using any of the following methods: * <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal:</E> Go to <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> and follow the online instructions for sending your comments electronically. * <E T="03">Mail:</E> Send comments to Docket Operations, M-30; U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Room W12-140, West Building Ground Floor, Washington, DC 20590-0001. * <E T="03">Hand Delivery or Courier:</E> Take comments to Docket Operations in Room W12-140 of the West Building Ground Floor at 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. * <E T="03">Fax:</E> Fax comments to Docket Operations at (202) 493-2251. <E T="03">Docket:</E> Background documents or comments received may be read at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> at any time. Follow the online instructions for accessing the docket or go to the Docket Operations in Room W12-140 of the West Building Ground Floor at 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. FAA Order JO 7400.11J, Airspace Designations and Reporting Points, and subsequent amendments can be viewed online at <E T="03">www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/.</E> You may also contact the Rules and Regulations Group, Policy Directorate, Federal Aviation Administration, 600 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20597; telephone: (202) 267-8783. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Brian Vidis, Rules and Regulations Group, Policy Directorate, Federal Aviation Administration, 600 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20597; telephone: (202) 267-8783. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Authority for This Rulemaking</HD> The FAA's authority to issue rules regarding aviation safety is found in Title 49 of the United States Code. Subtitle I, section 106 describes the authority of the FAA Administrator. Subtitle VII, Aviation Programs, describes in more detail the scope of the agency's authority. This rulemaking is promulgated under the authority described in Subtitle VII, Part A, Subpart I, Section 40103. Under that section, the FAA is charged with prescribing regulations to assign the use of the airspace necessary to ensure the safety of aircraft and the efficient use of airspace. This regulation is within the scope of that authority as it amends the route structure to maintain the efficient flow of air traffic within the NAS. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments Invited</HD> The FAA invites interested persons to participate in this rulemaking by submitting written comments, data, or views. Comments are specifically invited on the overall regulatory, aeronautical, economic, environmental, and energy-related aspects of the proposal. The most helpful comments reference a specific portion of the proposal, explain the reason for any recommended change, and include supporting data. To ensure the docket does not contain duplicate comments, commenters should submit only one time if comments are filed electronically, or commenters should send only one copy of written comments if comments are filed in writing. The FAA will file in the docket all comments it receives, as well as a report summarizing each substantive public contact with FAA personnel concerning this proposed rulemaking. Before acting on this proposal, the FAA will consider all comments it receives on or before the closing date for comments. The FAA will consider comments filed after the comment period has closed if it is possible to do so without incurring expense or delay. The FAA may change this proposal in light of the comments it receives. <E T="03">Privacy:</E> In accordance with 5 U.S.C. 553(c), DOT solicits comments from the public to better inform its rulemaking process. DOT posts these comments, without edit, including any personal information the commenter provides, to <E T="03">www.regulations.gov,</E> as described in the system of records notice (DOT/ALL-14 FDMS), which can be reviewed at <E T="03">www.dot.gov/privacy.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Availability of Rulemaking Documents</HD> An electronic copy of this document may be downloaded through the internet at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> Recently published rulemaking documents can also be accessed through the FAA's web page at <E T="03">www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/airspace_amendments/.</E> You may review the public docket containing the proposal, any comments received and any final disposition in person in the Dockets Operations office (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section for address, phone number, and hours of operations). An informal docket may also be examined during normal business hours at the office of the Eastern Service Center, Federal Aviation Administration, Room 210, 1701 Columbia Avenue, College Park, GA, 30337. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Incorporation by Reference</HD> United States Area Navigation Routes (Q-Routes) are published in paragraph 2006 of FAA Order JO 7400.11, Airspace Designations and Reporting Points, which is incorporated by reference in 14 CFR 71.1 on an annual basis. This document proposes to amend the current version of that order, FAA Order JO 7400.11J, dated July 31, 2024, and effective September 15, 2024. These updates would be published in the next update to FAA Order JO 7400.11. That order is publicly available as listed in the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section of this document. FAA Order JO 7400.11J lists Class A, B, C, D, and E airspace areas, air traffic service routes, and reporting points. <HD SOURCE="HD1">The Proposal</HD> The FAA is proposing an amendment to 14 CFR part 71 to establish RNAV Route Q-161 and amend RNAV Routes Q-97, Q-133, Q-437, Q-439, Q-445, and Q-481 in the eastern United States This action supports the NEC ACR Optimization Project to improve the efficiency of the NAS. The proposed route changes are described below. Additionally, the FAA identified that the route descriptions of RNAV Routes Q-133 and Q-437 list the KALDA, VA; VILLS, NJ; and LLUND, NY route points as Fixes, in error. These route points were modified on June 20, 2023, from a Fix to become a waypoint (WP). The KALDA, VILLS, and LLUND route points are identified as a WP in the National Airspace System Resource (NASR) database and charted as a WP accordingly. This proposal would correct these errors and refer to the KALDA, VILLS, and LLUND route points as a WP. In place of a two-letter state abbreviation for multiple listed route points in route descriptions the “OA” means “Offshore Atlantic”. <E T="03">Q-97:</E> Q-97 currently extends between the TOVAR, FL, WP and the Presque Isle, ME (PQI), Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Range/Distance Measuring Equipment (VOR/DME). The FAA proposes to remove the BYSEL, MD, WP from the route description as it is a turn of less than one degree. Additionally, the FAA proposes to add six route points between the ZJAAY, MD, WP and the Calverton, NY (CCC), VOR/DME. The route points that would be added are the PAJET, DE, WP; CAANO, DE, WP; TBONN, OA, WP; ZIZZI, NJ, WP; YAZUU, NJ, WP; and HEADI, NJ, WP. The proposed route modification would move RNAV Route Q-97 to the east to eliminate traffic conflicts between aircraft flying southbound on RNAV Route Q-97 and aircraft flying northbound on RNAV Route Q-439 descending into the New York and Connecticut areas. As amended, the route would continue to extend between the TOVAR WP and the Presque Isle VOR/DME. <E T="03">Q-133:</E> Q-133 currently extends between the CHIEZ, NC, WP and the PONCT, NY, WP. The FAA proposes to remove the airway segments between the CHIEZ WP and the CONFR, MD, WP and replace it with the airway segment between the JAMIE, VA, Fix and the CONFR WP. The route segment between the CHIEZ WP and the KALDA, VA, WP is still needed for navigation, and this action proposes to continue to provide this RNAV connectivity to the KALDA WP as new RNAV Route Q-161 proposed in this action. Additionally, the FAA proposes to remove the airway segment between the Kennedy, NY (JFK) VOR/DME and the PONCT WP and replace it with the airway segments between the Kennedy VOR/DME and the PBERG, NY, WP. These proposed changes improve the connectivity of multiple airports along the east coast of the United States to the Montreal-Trudeau Airport, Canada, where the preferred arrival route is over the PBERG WP. As amended, the route would be changed to extend between the JAMIE Fix and the PBERG WP. <E T="03">Q-161:</E> Q-161 is a new RNAV route proposed to extend between the CHIEZ, NC, WP and the KALDA, VA, WP. This new proposed RNAV route overl ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 26k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━