## Facts

- The City of Burbank enacted an ordinance imposing an 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew on jet takeoffs from Hollywood-Burbank Airport, with an emergency exception.
- The curfew prevented at least one scheduled intrastate jet departure by Pacific Southwest Airlines during the restricted hours.
- Lockheed Air Terminal, the airport operator, and others sued to enjoin enforcement, arguing that federal aviation and aircraft-noise regulation displaced local control and that the ordinance burdened national air traffic.
- The controversy arose within an extensive federal regulatory framework governing airspace and aircraft operations under the Federal Aviation Act of 1958 and aircraft-noise standards and implementation mechanisms reinforced by the Noise Control Act of 1972.

## Issues

1. Whether federal aviation and aircraft-noise regulation—administered primarily by the FAA, with a standards role for the EPA—preempts a municipal ordinance imposing a nighttime curfew on jet departures.
2. Whether a city may use general police powers to regulate the timing of aircraft takeoffs and landings to control noise in light of the federal scheme.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the injunction against enforcement of the ordinance.
- The Court held that the federal regulatory scheme for aircraft noise and flight operations is pervasive and leaves no room for local curfew rules targeting aircraft operations.
- The Court concluded that allowing municipalities to impose differing operational restrictions would interfere with federal objectives of safe, efficient, and coordinated management of navigable airspace.
- Because the ordinance was invalid under the Supremacy Clause, the Court did not rely on Commerce Clause analysis to resolve the case.

## Legal Principles

- Field preemption applies when Congress establishes a pervasive, integrated scheme governing aircraft operations and aircraft noise; in that setting, state and local governments may not impose additional operational limits such as curfews on takeoffs and landings.
- The FAA’s authority over airspace management and aircraft operations, reinforced by the Noise Control Act’s FAA/EPA structure for aircraft-noise standards and implementation, requires national uniformity inconsistent with local operational rules.
- Local regulations that directly control aircraft flight operations risk disrupting federal air-traffic management, including congestion and scheduling effects that extend beyond local boundaries.
- The decision distinguishes municipal police-power ordinances regulating aircraft operations from limited “airport proprietor” actions and from land-use measures that do not directly regulate aircraft in flight.

## Conclusion

The Court held that Burbank’s jet curfew ordinance was preempted because federal law commits aircraft-noise control and the operational regulation of air traffic to a nationally uniform system led by the FAA, with the EPA’s role defined by statute, leaving municipalities unable to impose their own curfews on aircraft operations.


City of Burbank v. Lockheed Air Terminal, Inc., 411 U.S. 624 (1973)