Allentown, PA Noise Ordinances: Aircraft Noise (2026)

Section 400-5A of Chapter 400, Noise, opens by stating that "the provisions of this chapter shall not apply to" a list of exceptions, and Subsection A(4) reads in full: "Aircraft and airport operations. " That means none of the prohibited acts in § 400-3, including the general noise-disturbance ban in § 400-3A and the property-line decibel limits in Table 1 of § 400-6A, reach noise generated by a plane taking off, landing, or operating normally at or around an airport within the city. The same exceptions subsection also excludes emergency sound-making at § 400-5A(1), repair or replacement of municipal or utility installations in the right-of-way at § 400-5A(2), stationary bells or chimes at places of religious worship at § 400-5A(3), and interstate railway transportation at § 400-5A(5).

Because Allentown has no ordinance-level authority over aircraft noise, a resident near a flight path cannot bring a Chapter 400 complaint to the Bureau of Health or Police over normal flight operations; aviation noise is instead governed by federal preemption under the Federal Aviation Act and by any voluntary noise-abatement procedures the operating airport itself adopts. The exemption is narrow in one respect: it covers "normal" operations only, so an abnormal or non-operational noise source on airport grounds, such as unrelated construction work or a stationary generator not tied to flight operations, would not automatically fall under this carve-out and could still be evaluated under the chapter's general prohibitions and the Hearing Board's variance process in § 400-5B.