FAA to Review Centennial Airport Restrictions on Parallel Departures and Touch-and-Go Operations
Why It MattersA regulator imposing operating limits on a busy general aviation field before consulting stakeholders shifts training flights and costs to neighboring airports, showing how safety risk findings can reallocate GA capacity quickly.
What happened
The FAA's Safety Risk Management panel will meet Tuesday and Wednesday, Oct. 27-28, to review operating restrictions at Centennial Airport (KAPA) near Denver. The panel will evaluate the risks and consider possible changes to procedures at what the item describes as one of the nation's busiest general aviation airports. The review follows a safety assessment that identified dozens of potentially hazardous interactions between aircraft departing from parallel runways.
The restrictions, introduced earlier this month, prohibit simultaneous departures from the airport's parallel runways and have effectively suspended routine touch-and-go operations. The FAA safety assessment covered May 2025 through April 2026 and identified 60 incidents involving aircraft deviating from their departure paths, including two verified near-midair collisions. Nine other events were classified as major safety events.
A memo attached to the assessment was written by Kubala Hope, Vice President, Operational System Intelligence. She wrote that APA was identified as having a higher frequency of recurring parallel departure deviations and aircraft drift between departing aircraft compared with the other facilities evaluated. A separate safety risk assessment was therefore conducted for APA, and unmitigated convergence due to aircraft drift during parallel departure operations resulted in an initial High-risk determination.
The changes have forced flight schools to conduct some training at other airports along Colorado's Front Range, adding flight time and operating expenses. In an Oct. 16 statement, Centennial Airport officials said the restrictions were implemented without advance notice or an opportunity for stakeholder input. The airport authority has requested participation by local controllers, airport representatives and community stakeholders in the upcoming review. It said safety remains its highest priority.
The FAA said it is working to develop additional safety measures following the review. Airport officials said they are seeking procedures that address the identified departure risks while limiting disruptions to flight schools, airport businesses and surrounding communities. No timeline has been announced for restoring simultaneous parallel departures or routine touch-and-go operations.
Industry impact & what to watch
Parallel-runway operations at busy general aviation fields depend on pilots holding their departure tracks while a second aircraft climbs out beside them. When drift between those tracks recurs, the regulator's available tools are blunt: remove the simultaneity or remove the pattern work that feeds it. Both fall hardest on flight training, where repetitive takeoffs and landings are the product, and the Centennial case shows how quickly that volume relocates to neighboring airports once a field restricts it.
The dispute also illustrates a process tension that recurs when safety findings drive immediate operational limits. The FAA's risk-management route can move faster than consultation with controllers, airport authorities and local businesses, and Centennial's request to join the review is an attempt to put that input back into the sequence. How much weight the panel gives to stakeholder-proposed mitigations will signal whether restrictions of this kind are treated as temporary controls or as a new baseline.
The next milestone is the outcome of the Oct. 27-28 panel meeting. Any revised departure procedures, and whether they restore parallel departures or touch-and-go operations, would be the clearest indication of how the High-risk determination is resolved.
