FAA proposes airspace updates for Miami, Fort Lauderdale
The FAA has posted notices of proposals to modify two of southern Florida’s busiest terminal airspace areas in Miami and Fort Lauderdale.
The proposed expansion of Miami International Airport’s Class B airspace would expand the outer boundary and lower the floor in some areas. It is designed to improve traffic flow, enhance safety, reduce the potential for midair collisions, and ensure that arriving and departing aircraft are contained within Class B airspace as required by FAA policy, the notice of proposed rulemaking said.
The FAA has also proposed expanding the Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport’s Class C airspace. It would be the first modification of the airspace since the Class C airspace was established in 1986 “despite significant increases in aircraft operations and passenger enplanements,” the FAA said. The reconfiguration and expansion of the airspace east and west of the airport, and lowering the airspace floor in some locations, would enhance safety and the efficiency of air traffic operations in the terminal area, and would revoke the Class E airspace extension to the Class C airspace surface area, the FAA said.
Comments may be submitted on the Fort Lauderdale Class C airspace proposal by June 1 online or by mail to U.S. Department of Transportation, Docket Operations, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590. Please identify FAA Docket No. FAA-2020-0988; Airspace Docket No. 18-AWA-3, at the beginning of your comments. Again, please share your comments with AOPA.
AOPA participated in planning meetings on the two airspace plans, both of which have been in the works for over a decade.
The FAA emphasized that the two airspace modification proposals are “separate and distinct” from the airspace modernization effort known as the Florida Metroplex Project.
