Establishment, Modification, and Revocation of Class E Airspace; Alaska, AK

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 71</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2024-2333; Airspace Docket No. 24-AAL-111]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA66</RIN> <SUBJECT>Establishment, Modification, and Revocation of Class E Airspace; Alaska, AK</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 Class E domestic en route airspace (Class E6) within a designated landmass and within 12 miles from a designated coastline associated with the state of Alaska to facilitate the vectoring of instrument flight rules (IFR) aircraft on direct routes where the current en route structure is insufficient or improper within the proposed airspace area. Due to redundancy, this action also proposes to remove two Class E6 airspace areas, remove two Class E airspace areas extending upward from 1,200 feet above the surface, and modify 101 Class E airspace areas extending upward from 700 feet or more above the surface of the earth (Class E5) to remove any portion extending upward from 1,200 feet above the surface due to redundancy. Finally, this action proposes administrative amendments to the legal descriptions of 48 Class E5 airspace areas. This action would support IFR operations while enhancing the safety and management of aircraft operations within the National Airspace System (NAS). </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before August 1, 2025. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Send comments identified by FAA Docket No. FAA-2024-2333 and Airspace Docket No. 24-AAL-111 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, Office of Policy, Federal Aviation Administration, 600 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20591; telephone: (202) 267-8783. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Nathan A. Chaffman, Federal Aviation Administration, Western Service Center, Operations Support Group, 2200 S 216th Street, Des Moines, WA 98198; telephone (206) 231-3460. </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 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 would establish, modify, and revoke Class E airspace to support IFR operations in the state of Alaska. <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 Northwest Mountain Regional Office of the Federal Aviation Administration, Air Traffic Organization, Western Service Center, Operations Support Group, 2200 S 216th Street, Des Moines, WA 98198. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Incorporation by Reference</HD> Class E5 and Class E6 airspace designations are published in paragraphs 6005 and 6006, respectively, 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. FAA Order JO 7400.11J, which lists Class A, B, C, D, and E airspace areas, air traffic service routes, and reporting points, is publicly available as listed in the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section of this document. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> A variety of Class E airspace areas exist over the state of Alaska today. Class E airspace overlies the entirety of the state (and within 12 miles from the coastline) beginning at 14,500 feet above sea level (excluding the Alaska Peninsula west of longitude 160°00′00″ W, and the airspace below 1,500 feet above the surface of the earth when in mountainous terrain greater than 14,500 feet above sea level). Additionally, 101 unique areas of Class E5 airspace with diameters as great as 150 miles, along with two Class E5 airspace areas extending upward from 1,200 feet above the surface, cover a majority of the state. Furthermore, the state has two Class E6 areas adjacent to the U.S./Canadian Border that also extend upward from 1,200 feet above the surface: one along the northeast boundary of the state and the other along the southeast boundary of the state. The combined 105 Class E airspace areas create redundancy within the NAS. This proposal seeks to simplify and minimize the airspace coverage over the state of Alaska by establishing 1 Class E6 airspace area to replace the 105 Class E airspace areas extending upward from 1,200 feet. In addition, 36 Class E airspace legal descriptions should be modified to update city and airport names, remove unnecessary references, and/or make corrections to language used within. The FAA previously published a notice of proposed rulemaking for Docket No. FAA-2020-2333 in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (89 FR 88182; November 7, 2024), same subject. That proposal was withdrawn on November 18, 2024, to provide additional supporting information. <HD SOURCE="HD1">The Proposal</HD> The FAA is proposing an amendment to 14 CFR part 71 that would establish one new Class E domestic en route airspace area, remove two Class E6 airspace areas, remove two Class E5 airspace areas extending upward from 1,200 feet above the surface, and modify 101 Class E5 airspace areas over the state of Alaska. By definition, Class E6 airspace is intended for en route operations, and Class E5 airspace is intended for aircraft transitioning to/from terminal or en route environments. The FAA intends to simplify the NAS by establishing a singular, statewide area of Class E6 airspace. A single Class E6 airspace area would better meet the needs of aviators and air traffic control by more appropriately containing aircraft operating on area ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 64k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━