foiaday 021 + 022
Requests about the skies and the road
Request 021 and 022 — 1/21 and 1/22/2026
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a noise complaint to the FAA!
Happy Thursday, and happy foiaday!
Yesterday was the inbox of my dreams and nightmares, let me tell you that:
This is such a “my steak is too juicy, my lobster is too buttery” kind of moment, not gonna lie. It’s great to have the responses back! That said, holy smokes.
I’m still sifting through some of the replies and documents in between reporting assignments and editing, so I’ll upload them to the DocumentCloud project tomorrow (and pick them apart for public consumption, too).
Tonight’s got two quick requests, including one from yesterday: noise complaints and salt budgets.
If there's a coworker or friend you think would benefit from this newsletter, feel free to forward it to them! If they subscribe, they'll also get a link to a template for the tracker I like to use to keep tabs on requests I've filed.
Wednesday’s request ✈️
Starting with request 21: noise complaints! But not just your run-of-the-mill “my neighbor’s party is too loud” kind of complaints. Let’s look to the skies and request for complaints about planes, jets, helicopters and the like. ✈️
The FAA has a few different kinds of complaints that people can lodge regarding aviation, both on the ground and in the sky.
Say you live near an airport, and the noise from operations are causing a ruckus. That should be a complaint for your local airport, or the FAA Noise Portal.
Maybe you want to escalate, or talk about larger issues in the area. Chat up a regional ombudsman, or file through the FAA Noise Portal.
Or maybe you want to talk about aircraft noise, to an ombudsman, but not about a local airport nor a regional one. Check out the FAA Aircraft Noise Ombudsman…. or file through the FAA Noise Portal.
If you couldn’t tell, all roads pretty much lead to this eponymous noise portal, so that’s where we’ll request from.
From what I can tell, the Noise Portal data isn’t public, but the policies about it are. The portal itself is called the ANCIR, or Aviation Noise Complaint and Inquiry Response, portal, and during Q3 of 2025 alone, 2,795 people made 7,213 calls — the most came from the East Coast, which makes sense considering the density of airports. Alaska filed the least calls — only 18! — and the Great Lakes was the second-highest with just over 1300 calls.
The form itself is pretty straightforward. Information about the complainant is required, though it’s redacted according to PII policies published by the Department of Transportation.
Information about the event, including the location and a description of the event (like the type of noise, or the volume), is also required, and the address info is used to identify the nearest airport that might be held responsible or have information related to the incident.
People can effectively request for a callback at the end, and they can add additional details like the aircraft type and a description of the plane if they have it. The FAA pushes for complaints to be routed to the local airport first, but doesn’t necessarily require it in order for folks to send in the complaint through ANCIR.
There’s a good data dictionary and user manual here that can help us mold our request to include the most data fields possible. Understanding what’s kept and how the records come together is key to breaking down the data row by row!
So. It seems like the FAA aggregates complaints by quarter, and obviously there were quite a bit in Q3 2025. Let’s grab everything from last year, with PII redacted:
- A list, data or documents to show all complaints filed with ANCIR between 1/1/2025 and 12/31/2025. Please include all fields included in each complaint, including the event location, the description of the event, and the date and time of the event. Please, though, feel free to redact any PII about the requester that may fall under ANCIR and DOT policies about PII protection. Please release the document in a .xlsx, .csv, .tsv or other machine-readable format. - The most recent records retention schedule for the department, which includes a list of documents kept by the agency and for how long each record is retained. Please release this in a .pdf if possible.
Thursday’s request 🧂
Today! It is really, really cold out in Chicago (with windchill, up to -40° F tomorrow!), and people are getting pummeled around the country with winter storms.
Chicago, naturally, doesn’t mess around when it comes to winter storm supplies, like salt. But other places are different, and I’m kind of curious.
So let’s request from a few different state DOTs:
Texas Department of Transportation (aka TxDOT!)
We’ll request for all budget info — easy peasy! — but then also maybe grab additional standard operating procedures, fleet deployment procedures or other practices to handle snow, ice and everything in between.
So, let’s request:
- Budget and expenditure information for the most recent year (FY or CY, whichever the agency uses) in a machine-readable format like a .xlsx, .csv or .pdf. - Documents related to winter weather road clearing, treatment and deployment practices. These may include standard operating procedures, practices to handle snow, ice, sleet or wind, and weather below freezing temperatures. Please release documents in a .pdf format if possible! - The most recent records retention schedule for the department, which includes a list of documents kept by the agency and for how long each record is retained. Please release this in a .pdf if possible.
Anyway, I’m going to hunker down and turn on the electric blankets and grab my fuzzy slippers! Like I mentioned earlier, I’ll get the returned records up into DocumentCloud, and you’ll probably see some updates on Friday’s newsletter!
In the meantime, if you have any ideas for requests that you want to see filed, feel free to reply to this email and drop me a line. I’d love to hear them!
Happy filing, and stay warm!
Cam
Add a comment: