Given the racket that people raise over airport noise, one would think that the social benefits of regulating airport noise must be great. In fact, they are not. Internal combustion generates noise, and the combustion needed to get a loaded 727 off the ground is considerable. In 1977 the FAA designated three stages of aircraft, judged by their noise levels. The agency also established deadlines for meeting the second-stage noise requirements.
Airplane noise tends to reduce the value of land located in the flight paths around airports.
But the law also has generated costs for airlines and their customers. Airlines have chosen a mix of strategies, depending on the routes they fly and the vintages of the Stage II airplanes they owned. When ANCA was passed, fully 55 percent of the U.S. fleet was comprised of Stage II aircraft. As I write, all of these planes either have been scrapped, sold to foreign airlines at substantially discounted prices, or retrofitted with hush kits. There is an extensive literature on the effects of noise on property values.