Happy New Year 2026
As we enter our tenth year, we want to thank everyone who helped out last year and ask for renewed support in the next. This is a big year and what we need most–to continue helping you–right now are a few more donations.
Two slogans
As the slogan says, “Solve for Sea-Tac. Solve for every airport.” Although airport consultants are correct when they say “Seen one airport? Seen one airport!”, all airport communities tend to have the same issues. We’ve been able to make some headway for people all over America by working on issues here that we know will benefit everyone.
Our other slogan was “Everything you think you know about the airport is wrong.” That was never all true but it was (and still is) mostly true. Most people will only get their information from a single source: the FAA or their airport operator. And that is like asking the guy on the other side of the table if you’re getting a great deal.
What’s next
For 2026 we’ll have deep dives on property values, public health, and for the first time, a series of articles and podcast episodes on the one thing we get asked about most: procedures (aka ‘flight paths’.)
We’ve avoided the topic for years for the same reason we wouldn’t offer a bottle of Scotch to an alcoholic. We know how desperate many of you are for immediate relief and that makes people vulnerable to all manner of snake oil trying to change the mix of GLASR3, CHINS5 and the dreaded HAWKZ8.
But although everything about airports is complicated, the things we need to do to improve our communities are not. Unfortunately, at most presentations you’ll see, the FAA or airport operator will bring out ‘the fireworks’–displays of flight tracks that looks like the Fourth of July. They seem almost designed to dazzle and overwhelm.
We’re going to show you that the choices are actually fairly simple. In fact, they have to be simple in order to make so many daily operations work.
That doesn’t mean the solutions are easy. They won’t be. But the challenges were never technical so much as getting residents to cooperate instead of saying “Don’t like it? Move!” Or trying to do exactly what the FAA does not want: “push the noise around.”
Then there is the Port of Seattle–and so many electeds–who continue to sell economic growth somewhere else as a substitute for properly mitigating and compensating us fairly.
We’ll continue to cut through all those other types of noise. And with your help, we’ll get to where we always should have been. Much faster.
Miles, Paula, Steve, Idé and JC
…on behalf of STNI
Thanks for all your hard work on this topic. I’ve lived under the flight path in Des Moines now for a year. I’m within the noise boundary and inherited the sound package with all the trappings. I’ve learned so much from y’all this year and have been motivated to write to city council and legislators concerning our shared problems. Thank you, thank you!