FAA Opens Comment Period and Announces Workshops on Draft Environmental Assessment for Anchorage Terminal Airspace Redesign

The FAA, in cooperation with the United States Air Force, has announced a public review and comment period and public workshops for the Draft Environmental Assessment (DEA) of the Anchorage Terminal Area Airspace and Procedures Study (ATAAPS). The proposal is a redesign of terminal airspace in the Anchorage basin and surrounding areas, involving changes to airspace, aircraft flight paths and aircraft altitudes. The DEA evaluates the potential environmental impacts of the Proposed Action and of a No Action alternative, and the FAA has not made a final decision on any airspace or procedure amendment.

The comment period opens on October 7, 2026 and closes on November 9, 2026. The FAA will accept written comments postmarked no later than November 9, 2026, and will host two virtual community engagement workshops, on October 27 and October 28, 2026, in Alaska Daylight Time. The DEA, its appendices and the workshop announcements are posted on the FAA ATAAPS web page. Early notice of the FAA's intent to prepare the DEA was published in the Federal Register on July 16, 2026 (91 FR 43723).

The FAA prepared the DEA under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 and FAA Order 1050.1G. The agency says Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (JBER), described as a strategic gateway for homeland defense, is restricted from operating at its intended capacity and fleet mix until the surrounding airspace is modified. The Instrument Landing System for Runway 17 is integral to improving JBER operations but cannot become operational under the current airspace design. JBER's Runway 16/34 is to be redesignated Runway 17/35 because of magnetic variation changes before the Final Rule is completed.

RNAV-based standard instrument departure (SID) and standard terminal arrival (STAR) procedures have been in effect in the Anchorage basin and surrounding areas for over 20 years. The new procedures would be designed with advanced RNAV capabilities. The Proposed Action is not anticipated to increase aircraft operations at the study airports or involve physical construction of facilities.

The FAA evaluated potential environmental impacts of procedure changes below 10,000 feet above ground level (AGL) within a General Study Area. It also evaluated areas requiring special noise consideration under FAA policy, such as national parks, national wildlife refuges, historic sites and traditional cultural properties, for changes below 18,000 feet AGL. Changes above 18,000 feet AGL within an approximate 41,725-square-mile Study Area are considered generally outside the affected environmental study area under FAA Order 1050.1G.

Terminal airspace design is a shared constraint. Here a military installation cannot use its intended fleet mix or bring a new instrument landing system into service until the surrounding civil airspace changes, so one procedure set governs both defense and civil operations in the basin. Any aircraft flying into or out of the Anchorage area works within whatever arrival and departure structure comes out of this process.

The environmental review is the gate. Because the FAA states the proposal is not expected to increase operations or require construction, the questions that tend to draw comment are noise and flight-path location over sensitive areas, which is why the assessment separates the below-10,000-foot and below-18,000-foot analyses. Operators using RNAV procedures should expect the redesign to reshape the published SIDs and STARs they have flown for over 20 years.

The dated milestones are the November 9, 2026 comment deadline and the two October workshops. The FAA has made no final decision, and the Final Rule on the airspace and the runway redesignation to 17/35 come after the comments are weighed.