HAI/MARK BENNETT


American tribes. FAA and NPS representatives serve as ex officio members and cochairs. Formed in 2001, the group was an active par- ticipant in providing input on NPS and FAA actions related to the NPATMA until the 2020 court order derailed the ATMP process. HAI President and CEO James Viola represents commercial air tour operators on the NPOAG, as did his predecessor, Matt Zuccaro. Te NPATMA also allowed the FAA to


provide interim operating authority (IOA) for existing operators over park and tribal lands pending issuance of the ATMP, but those IOAs were subject to requirements and limitations. Operators were issued annual flight allocations and were limited in altitudes, routes, hours, and more. In an effort to simplify the process, the


NPATMA was later amended to allow, in lieu of an ATMP, a voluntary agreement between all tour operators at a location, the FAA, and the NPS if all parties agreed. Additionally, ATMPs or voluntary agreements were now only required if more than 50 commercial air tours took place or were allocated over a park annually. Te FAA and NPS were successful in securing


voluntary agreements for two parks by 2016. However, no ATMPs were in place in 2019 when a coalition of Hawaii residents and the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, representing current and former public employees, sued the FAA and NPS for


failure to complete the ATMP process. In legal documents and press releases, coalition mem- bers cited excessive noise from aircraft overflights as negatively affecting visitor experience, quality of life, park flora and fauna, and public health. On May 1, 2020, the US Court of Appeals


for the District of Columbia ordered the FAA and NPS to adopt ATMPs or voluntary agree- ments for 23 named NPS areas. It gave the agencies 24 months to comply. Extensions have been granted to the agencies, provided they continue to report progress to the court.


A Rushed Process In responses to the court during the lawsuit process, the FAA and NPS cited frequent impasses between all parties as a reason for the delay of ATMP implementation. After the 2020 court order, the agencies have moved forward without consulting either air tour operators or the NPOAG. Te agencies devel- oped their plans and then held online public meetings where they outlined the draft ATMP and invited the air tour industry to ask questions in those forums. “Tese meetings were one-way presentations


of their plans,” says Jake Tomlin, president of Papillon Grand Canyon Helicopters and Grand Canyon Scenic Airways. “You had to submit your questions in a forum and maybe they get to them. When we do get to [voice our con- cerns]? Tey say, ‘Tat’s great, thanks. We’ll look into it.’ And we don’t hear back from them.”


Te ATMP process seems designed to


drastically reduce the number of aerial tour flights. For example, all draft and final ATMPs eliminate the flight allocations assigned in the IOAs. Instead, the agencies calculate the average number of tour flights conducted between 2017 and 2019 by the tour operators holding IOAs for a particular NPS area. Tat number then becomes the total number of permitted annual commercial tour flights; the flights are distributed among operators based on each operator’s average number of flights. Tis reduces the allowable flights from the potential maximum of the entire IOA allocation to the average of 2017–19 actual flights. In addition, if an operator previously held allotments but made no flights between 2017 and 2019, that operator would no longer be permitted to fly any tours. For instance, before the ATMP, Death Valley


National Park had IOAs authorizing 37 flights among four air tour operators. Te average annual number of tour operations during the 2017–19 reporting period was one flight from a helicopter operator and one from a fixed-wing operator. Te final ATMP now allows each operator to fly one flight a year. Similarly, one fixed-wing operator flying over Mt. Rainier National Park had its flights reduced from an IOA annual allotment of 34 flights to an ATMP that allows one flight a year. Te new system has raised concerns about economic sustainability of the air tour industry.


Aerial tours over lands administered by the US National Park Service are threatened by a bureaucratic process that seems designed to ground those fleets permanently. Opposite page: Some natural phenomena, such as this lava flow on the Island of Hawaii, are best—and more safely—seen from the air.


DECEMBER 2022 ROTOR 37


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