Update, October 3, 2026: the FAA did not extend the comment period, which closed on October 2. What happens next.
Within a week of the proposed rule’s publication, three elected officials asked the FAA for a longer comment period. The FAA has not extended the comment period. The deadline remains Friday, October 2, 2026, and the safest course is to file your comment now; if the FAA extends the period, nothing filed early is lost.
Palm Beach County Commissioner Gregg Weiss (District 2) wrote to FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford on September 3, one day after publication, requesting an immediate 60-day extension. He wrote that 30 days “is insufficient for the thousands of residents who will be permanently impacted by this regulatory change,” that a permanent rule “fundamentally alters local aviation corridors in perpetuity,” and that many affected residents are seasonal and currently away. (The proposal has no end date and no required review; it could be changed later, but nothing in it requires that.) Read the letter (PDF).
Congresswoman Lois Frankel held a press conference under the flight path on September 9 with Commissioner Weiss and Palm Beach Mayor Danielle Moore, asking the FAA to hold off on a permanent rule, to come to Palm Beach to hear residents, and to add 60 days to the comment period. Coverage: BIG 105.9 / iHeart.
At the press conference, the officials also asked the FAA to revisit the 2,000-foot ceiling (Commissioner Weiss: it “needs to be addressed”), to give alternative approaches “further review” (Rep. Frankel), and to build “flexibility” into any permanent rule. Coverage: WFLX.
State Representative Emily Gregory (Florida House District 87, West Palm Beach) sent a certified letter to the docket the same day, invoking the FAA’s own extension rule (14 CFR § 11.47). Her letter cites the proposal’s complexity and says quality of life for the residents of her district, which she puts at 180,000 people, “will be substantially negatively affected should this Rule be enacted as currently proposed.” Read the letter (PDF).
The Coalition did not ask residents to request an extension; it asked them to file before the deadline that existed.