Modification and Revocation of Class E Airspace; Hawaiian Island, HI

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 71</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-1187; Airspace Docket No. 24-AWP-84]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA66</RIN> <SUBJECT>Modification and Revocation of Class E Airspace; Hawaiian Island, HI</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 modify the Class E airspace area extending upward from 700 feet above the surface (Class E5 700-foot airspace area) at Lihue Airport (LIH), Lihue, HI; Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL), Honolulu, HI; and Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport, Keahole (KOA), Kailua-Kona, HI, by adding an additional layer of Class E5 airspace extending upward from 1,200 feet above the surface. This proposed addition of controlled airspace would comply with international airspace treaty provisions and satisfy the State of Hawaii's domestic airspace requirements. Additionally, this action proposes to remove the existing Class E5 airspace area that currently encompasses the Hawaiian Islands and extends beyond 12 miles from the shoreline into international airspace. This proposed action would further modify the Class E4 airspace area designated as an extension to a Class D or Class E surface area at KOA and remove the Class E4 airspace area at LIH. These actions support the safe and efficient management of instrument flight rules (IFR) operations at airports within the Hawaiian Islands. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before September 18, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Send comments identified by FAA Docket No. FAA-2025-1187 and Airspace Docket No. 24-AWP-84 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> Keith T. Adams, 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 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 would modify Class E airspace to support IFR operations at airports within the Hawaiian Islands. <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 E4 and Class E5 airspace designations are published in paragraphs 6004 and 6005, 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> In 2018, the FAA identified that the Class E airspace designation over the Hawaiian Islands extended into international airspace beyond U.S. territorial waters. Although a 2019 amendment (84 FR 24364; May 28, 2019) attempted to address the issue, it was based on a misinterpretation of applicable law and did not fully resolve the error. As a result, the current Class E airspace configuration remains inconsistent with international law. Under the Chicago Convention and customary international law—reflected in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and Proclamation 5928, <E T="03">Territorial Sea of the United States,</E> issued by President Reagan in 1988—U.S. territorial waters extend 12 nautical miles from the coastline. Airspace beyond that limit is international and not subject to U.S. domestic designation. Hawaii's eight major islands are separated by distances exceeding 24 nautical miles in some areas, creating gaps of international airspace. The FAA's 2019 rule incorrectly applied the concept of “archipelagic states” under UNCLOS to justify connecting the islands with contiguous Class E airspace. However, FAA has since determined that because Hawaii is a U.S. state, it is not an archipelagic state under international law, and therefore is not entitled to such treatment. As confirmed by historical precedent, aircraft transiting between these island groupings enter international airspace when more than 12 nautical miles from the coastline. <E T="03">See, e.g., CAB</E> v. <E T="03">Island Airlines,</E> 235 F. Supp. 990 (D. Haw. 1964). This notice proposes corrective action to realign the Hawaiian Class E airspace with U.S. jurisdiction and international legal standards, restricting it to airspace over U.S. land and territorial waters. <HD SOURCE="HD1">The Proposal</HD> The FAA is proposing an amendment to 14 CFR part 71 that would modify the Class E airspace extending upward from 700 feet or more above the surface (Class E5 700-foot airspace area) at LIH, HNL, and KOA. Additionally, the FAA proposes to revoke the existing Class E airspace area over the Hawaiian Islands that extends upward from 1,200 feet above the surface (Class E5 1200-foot airspace area) and redefine it in accordance with U.S. territorial boundar ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━