BRISBANE -- Jeff Zajas has had a lot of sleepless nights lately. Suddenly the space above his house feels like an airport runway.
"It's 11:30 at night. You're beginning to go to sleep, and bang! There's an airplane overhead," Zajas said. "We have double-paned windows. It's a new house. I would hate to think if you were sleeping in the summertime with the window open -- it would be really bad."
Zajas can't imagine things getting any worse than what he's experienced recently -- the airplane engines blasting up the center of downtown Brisbane and over San Bruno Mountain, sometimes every 10 minutes.
And he's not the only one. Dozens of Brisbane residents have contacted San Francisco International Airport, city officials and even U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier's office about the unrelenting airplane traffic they say has gotten much worse in the past eight months or so.
Zajas himself sent 24 separate e-mails to the airport's Aircraft Noise Abatement Office in November.
"They gave me a litany about how the airport has increased traffic volumes since 9/11," he said. "It did not sit well with me."
City officials are equally irate.
"It's a mess out there. The quality of life we know in Brisbane is in jeopardy," Councilwoman Sepi Richardson said.
Richardson and other city representatives have met with airport officials, who recently installed three decibel meters to measure the noise level of airplanes over Brisbane. The
Bert Ganoung, manager of the Noise Abatement Office, told the Times he could find no reason to explain the sudden increase in air traffic Brisbane residents insist they've been experiencing. He mentioned that airport traffic had increased steadily since an all-time low of about 600 arrivals and departures per day in 2004 and 2005.
Now, he said, those numbers are getting closer to the 1,200 per day that the airport saw in 1999. The arrival of low-cost airlines Virgin America, Southwest and JetBlue has driven much of the growth. But the resulting traffic was nothing out of the ordinary.
"We've had complaints from Brisbane forever. As long as I remember," Ganoung said, adding, "It's a fairly quiet community -- that's the main reason for concerns."
Brisbane is six miles from the airport. Most flights don't come near the city, but those following a Southern California departure route bank south over San Bruno Mountain, Daly City and Pacifica before heading toward Los Angeles, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Airplanes on that route are supposed to fly eastward over the bay for a few miles, gaining elevation before they turn left near Candlestick Point and head south. The flights are supposed to fly over the spine of San Bruno Mountain State Park, not over downtown Brisbane, Ganoung said.
The FAA says its flight patterns have never changed. But Ganoung said the FAA has been using its discretion to allow pilots to turn over the bay sooner to help the airlines save money on fuel.
However, Ganoung denied that would affect Brisbane residents, since the rerouted carriers would be flying over South San Francisco. Nevertheless, his office has spoken with several airlines and the FAA to make them aware of concerns.
"The problem is, the airport doesn't give out routes or anything like that. It's the airlines that set their schedules and destinations, and the FAA sets the routes," Ganoung said.
Airplanes in general have become quieter and more efficient in recent years, but Ganoung said he will try to get the airlines to reduce their noise over Brisbane by making power reductions and flying higher.
"We're trying to get them to improve. Altitude would help out and reduced power settings would help out, too," he said.
Richardson and other Brisbane residents, eager for improvements, will be waiting to see whether they'll actually get a better night's sleep.
"I'm going to take their word on it and watch very carefully," she said.
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