From: News and Views | City Beat |
Tuesday, July 31, 2001

Concorde Fight
Gets Refueled

By WARREN WOODBERRY JR.
Daily News Staff Writer

Today's fight to ban the Concorde from returning to Kennedy Airport is much calmer than the one locals waged in the 1970s when the noisy jet first arrived.

People living around the airport in 1976-79 would not stand to have the noisy jet pass over their neighborhoods and took action.

There were rallies at City Hall and Port Authority headquarters at the World Trade Center, and on weekends, protesters slowly drove their vehicles around airport roads to tie up traffic and shut down Kennedy.

"We drove 5 miles per hour, and we stopped the whole airport," said Carol Berman, 78, of Lawrence, L.I., a protest leader and former 9th District state senator. "We made it very clear that the people weren't going to tolerate that extra noise."

Today, few local opponents of aircraft noise have spoken out against the plane's possible return to the U.S. by late summer. Concorde flights were put on hold after one of the jets crashed a year ago.

Since the fiery crash outside Paris, 12 of the world's fastest remaining commercial jets have been grounded to undergo safety modifications for the reinstatement of their airworthiness certificates.

If the people living around JFK don't demonstrate, then they deserve whatever abuse and punishment they get from the Concorde," said Allan Greene, a 1970s protester and vice president of Sane Aviation For Everyone, a local group opposed to airport expansion. "They've got to fight."

The outcry of the '70s drew nationwide media coverage, and forced the Port Authority to ban the jet from New York. But a court ruling in favor of British Airways and Air France reversed the decision, saying the agency could not discriminate against the plane because of its loud engines.

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn/Queens) proposed legislation to ban the Concorde from U.S. skies entirely, unless advances to its Rolls-Royce-Olympus 593 engines could lower their sound levels.

John Lampl, British Airways spokesman, said improvements to the carrier's seven jets do not include noise mitigation but said pilots are aware of the impact the planes have had on the community.

"We operate a certain way around the airport to lessen the sound in the built-up areas around the airport," Lampl said of the jets that take off over Jamaica Bay. "From the time we go over the Rockaways, the noise impact is minimal."

Protester Bryan Levinson, 68, of Howard Beach said back in the '70s, the airlines planned to bring 50 Concorde flights to Kennedy, with routes to Washington, Miami and Dallas.

"They thought they were going to go big time," Levinson said of the airlines, which ultimately were limited to three daily round trips. "You can't put a supersonic transport as noisy as these are in a neighborhood where people live."

Greene never gave up his fight against the Concorde and is working with Weiner on plans for future protests.

"I was furious there wasn't more we could do," Greene said of past efforts. "We won the battles, but we lost the war."

The Concorde made its first flight to Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1977. Its last flight, Sept. 21, 2000, was made by an Air France jet that was grounded at Kennedy after the July 25, 2000, crash near Paris.