The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Park Service were required to develop management plans for commercial air tours over national parks and tribal lands after Congress passed the National Parks Air Tour Management Plan Act in 2000.
But it took almost two decades for the first of those plans to be developed and it took litigation by a group of Hawaii residents and the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility to kickstart the process.
A 2019 lawsuit resulted in a federal court order leading to two dozen plans nationwide, including for Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and Haleakala National Park. The Haleakala plan is not mentioned in the VAI petition.
