East Hampton Town sees sharp decline in airport noise complaints

Noise complaints linked to flights at East Hampton Town Airport in Wainscott have dropped by more than 61% over the past four years, a sharp decline as the number of overall flights also fell, according to a new report.

Aircraft noise complaints fell for four straight years — from 47,096 in 2021 to 18,169 in 2025. The number of flights logged at the airport declined by nearly 22%, from 32,298 in 2021 to 25,252 last year. 

Flights at the airport spiked in 2021 during the coronavirus pandemic, which saw people forgo international trips and travel to the Hamptons instead, Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez said.

The steep drop holds across most aircraft types, including helicopters, which remain the largest source of the noise complaints. There were 5,212 complaints about helicopter noise in 2025, down from 7,631 in 2022, a 32% drop. Helicopter operations generate about twice as many complaints as fixed-wing aircraft, according to the data.

For years, residents in Wainscott and across the East End have complained about incessant flight noise. Amid a debate on whether to close the airport, the town has tried to set new rules to curb noise, but those efforts have been thwarted by lawsuits.

Recent measures targeted at noise reduction, including designated flight routes and a nighttime curfew — both voluntary — may be contributing to the shift, officials said on Tuesday. They took the decline as an encouraging sign.

“The airport's been a contentious subject for a long time, and I think that in reality, there's always going to be difference of opinion about how it should operate — if it should operate at all,” Councilman Ian Calder-Piedmonte said during the work session. “But I'm encouraged … that there has been some improvement, and I also appreciate that it seems like there's a lot of voluntary compliance.”

New routes, night curfews

Matthew Simon of HMMH, an aviation consulting firm based in Burlington, Massachusetts, presented the report to the town board during a work session on Tuesday.

Simon said the timing of flights plays a major role. The town records complaints using the software PlaneNoise, and HMMH’s analysis was able to link complaints to certain flights based on location and time, he said.

A daytime flight generates an average of 1.12 complaints, compared with 3.42 for late-night and early-morning operations, though relatively few flights occur during those hours. The airport has a voluntary curfew from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.

Most complaints occur during peak air traffic periods, particularly in summer and during high-traffic travel windows such as Thursday, Friday and Sunday evenings, as well as Monday mornings, Simon said.

Many of the complaints stem from a relatively small number of households, Simon's data showed. While most residents filed only a handful of reports over the past five years, a limited number of households filed hundreds or even thousands of complaints, Simon said.

The data also confirmed that aircraft noise remains a regional issue. More than 60% of complaints came from residents of neighboring East End towns. Aircraft headed to the airport often travel along the North and South shores, and are asked to fly at certain heights and follow routes over water to mitigate noise.

Skeptics wary

Teresa McCaskie, who lives on the North Fork in Mattituck, said the drop reflects apathy rather than meaningful improvements.

“There’s a reduction in complaints because many people have given up,” McCaskie, who attended the presentation, told Newsday.

Shifting flight routes is only a temporary solution because “eventually somebody is going to be suffering from the noise,” said McCaskie, chairwoman of Southold Town’s Aircraft Noise Committee.

Barry Raebeck of Wainscott, who leads a group that advocates for restrictions at the airport, said he knows people who recently sold their homes because they lived under the flight path and couldn’t stand the noise. Most flights don’t occur overnight, making the curfew practically “non-existent,” he said.

The findings come as the airport remains the focus of a long-running debate. The town attempted to close the public airport in 2022 and reopen it as a private facility, a move that would have given officials more control over air traffic and noise. The effort was met with lawsuits from aviation interests and adverse court rulings. The town remains in litigation.

The public airport, operated by the town, serves private pilots, charter flights, commercial operators and seasonal visitors, primarily from Manhattan.