Aloha, Friend. I am sharing with you the recent announcement from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on the extension of the deadline for public comment regarding the FAA’s Hawai‘i Airspace Modernization Project (HAMP).On November 18, 2025, the FAA announced the start of the scoping phase of this project and solicited input from the public and the aviation industry on airspace utilization concerns and on issues to focus on in “modernizing” airspace utilization. Although the comment period was initially scheduled to end on January 31, 2026, based on the many comments received, the FAA extended the public comment period until this coming Sunday, March 15, 2026.  By way of background, under current law the FAA has virtually exclusive jurisdiction over utilization of our nation’s airspace. State and county governments and communities have virtually no say, so that any community concerns must be addressed if at all by the FAA, which in my own experience has been largely unresponsive, especially to concerns on the ground disruptions of commercial, military, tour helicopter and other use of airspace over the land and nearshore areas of our state. HAMP is part of the FAA’s effort to modernize airspace utilization nationally. Because of repeated complaints and other concerns from the communities I represent and elsewhere statewide on use of our airspace, I asked the FAA to prioritize Hawaii’s airspace for this effort, which the FAA has done. It is very important that we all participate in this rare opportunity to take a big-picture, long-term look at use of our airspace not just now but over the next decades and influence the FAA to make decisions that fully account for citizen and community concerns. Again, in my experience the FAA has focused almost exclusively at maximizing (often translated as increased volume) the efficient (often translated as least expensive, or lower altitude) use of our airspace for commercial purposes. This focus is in many cases fundamentally incompatible with avoiding or mitigating ground and community disruption. Your comments to clearly communicate concerns and change the FAA’s focus to fully incorporate them are very much needed.I have stressed these points in my own comments. Some of my very specific concerns are (1) increasing commercial flights at lower altitudes over O‘ahu neighborhoods and other sensitive locations on approach to landing, (2) increasing use of the west landing to HNL over ‘Ewa/Kapolei, (3) increasing night takeoffs and landings, (4) increasing congestion generally at HNL from the centralization of all of commercial, tour helicopters and general aviation, (5) lack of coordination with and limitations on military utilization of our airspace, especially over communities at night, and (6) the continued proliferation of tour helicopters and small aircraft statewide and lack of any real time, location, number and manner of flight restrictions to enhance safety and mitigate ground disruption. Some of my specific requests are: (1) do not fly over O‘ahu on approach, but instead fly through our channels to a central point south of O‘ahu to set up for landing at HNL (the only reason this is not done now is because it is faster and cheaper for the airlines to fly over O‘ahu on approach); (2) reinstate the inter-island and as possible other landings at HNL on approach to the north up the Pearl Harbor channel, and similarly maximize use of Runway 4R/L (from the southwest over the ocean and reef runway) to take as much load off the from-the-west approach over ‘Ewa/Kapolei; (3) move as much general aviation including tour helicopters as possible from HNL elsewhere; (4) significantly tighten nighttime use restrictions and military use coordination; and (5) institute significant time, location, altitude and manner restrictions on tour helicopters and small aircraft operations statewide. Your comments can be submitted via the link below or through the HAMP webpage. Comments submitted through the form will be considered by the FAA in the development of the scope of this project.You can get to the form here. The HAMP website can be accessed using this link: https://www.faa.gov/airtraffic/communityengagement/community-engagement-hawaii As always, please stay in touch as we pursue our mutual goal to ensure that the utilization of Hawaii’s airspace prioritizes not just our air transportation needs but our safety, health, quality of life and natural resource protection concerns as well. Please also go to my web site at https://case.house.gov or email me at ed.case@mail.house.gov.