Boston Logan International Airport Wins Prestigious 2025 Jay Hollingsworth Speas Airport Award
The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) congratulates Boston Logan International Airport (BOS) as the winner of the 2025 Jay Hollingsworth Speas Airport Award for designing new low-noise flight procedures to actively reduce aviation noise impacts around the airport while also providing a reduction in fuel burn.
The Jay Hollingsworth Speas Airport Award honors an individual or individuals judged to have contributed most significantly in recent years to the enhancement of relationships between airports and/or heliports and other surrounding environments via exemplary innovation that might be replicated elsewhere. The award is cosponsored by AIAA, the American Association of Airport Executives (AAAE), and the Airport Consultants Council (ACC).
“The Award Committee is pleased to recognize the excellent collaborative work by MIT and Massport to reduce aircraft noise for residents under Boston Logan International Airport approach paths while simultaneously reducing fuel burn and distance traveled,” said R. Dixon “Dirk” Speas Jr., brother of Jay Hollingsworth Speas in whose memory the award was established 40 years ago by their father, R. Dixon Speas. “It is our hope that other airports and communities will benefit from the methodologies utilized.”
The following representatives from the collaborating organizations will accept the award during the awards luncheon on 13 March at the 2025 AAAE/ACC Airport Planning, Design, and Construction Symposium in San Antonio, Texas:
· R. John Hansman, T. Wilson Professor of Aeronautics & Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
· Flavio Leo, Director of Aviation Planning and Strategy, Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport)
· Jacqueline Huynh, Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California Irvine
· Sandro Salgueiro, Airspace Integration Engineer, SkyGrid
Over the last decade, improvements to aircraft navigation technology have allowed departing and arriving aircraft to follow highly precise routes in the sky. These new routes, known as Area Navigation (RNAV) flight procedures, were implemented at BOS between 2012 and 2013 and have allowed aircraft to navigate more efficiently and predictably in the airspace around Boston. However, this shift to more precise navigation has had the side effect of concentrating aircraft trajectories over specific neighborhoods, leading to a perceived increase in aviation noise for affected communities. After the implementation of RNAV procedures, the number of noise complaints received annually by the airport increased, with complaint locations correlating strongly with RNAV tracks.
In response, in 2016, a three-way collaboration was started between the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Massport, and MIT to identify potential modifications to the then-current departure and arrival procedures at BOS that could mitigate the impacts of high flight track concentrations. In collaboration with Massport and the FAA, Professor John Hansman and graduate students at the MIT International Center for Air Transportation (ICAT) led outreach to communities and technical development of potential procedure modifications. Over a period of six years, ICAT investigated several technical solutions for mitigating aircraft noise.
Following extensive collaboration with community groups and operational stakeholders, four new low-noise flight procedures were submitted to the FAA for implementation. Now deployed operationally, these procedures are actively reducing aviation noise impacts around BOS while also providing a reduction in fuel burn.
