Sunday marks the start of this year’s Burning Man festival happening north of Reno.
Many Bay Area burners will be making the trip on special charter flights leaving from airports in Oakland and San Carlos.
Over the nine days of the festival, about 100 flights will take off and land from the airport in San Carlos and that has some neighbors worried about noise.
It’s called the Burner Express, and for about $1,000, it will take Burning Man participants from San Carlos to Black Rock City, but it could also create noise for neighbors.
Starting next Sunday, up to six flights per day will leave from the San Carlos Airport carrying passengers bound for the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert. That’s a noticeable increase in the number of flights at this normally sleepy little airport a few miles south of San Francisco airport.
Worried that the extra noise might upset neighbors, the airport is trying to be proactive.
They released a statement.
“We met with Burner Express staff to emphasize the importance of using the quietest arrival and departure settings possible when operating into and out of the San Carlos Airport,” Airport Manager Gretchen Kelly said. “We’re happy to be a small part of participant’s burning man experience but are mindful that their fun isn’t a burden to those on the ground.”
Around the airport, neighbors KRON4 talked to were taking a wait-and-see attitude about the possibility of more noise.
“Yeah, sometimes the private planes I can see taking off,” resident Melissa Yazir said.
Yazir lives to the north of the runway.
She says the planes don’t bother her and that any noise is just part of living near an airport.
“We hear the traffic from 101. You expect to hear noise from the airport. I mean, if you sign up to live in this neighborhood, it kinda comes with the territory,” Yazir said.
The Burning Man festival doesn’t officially start until Sunday, but some Burner Express flights are scheduled to make the trip starting on Thursday and the number of flights ramps up this weekend and continues through Sept 3.
If you’re thinking about taking one of the flights from San Carlos to Reno for Burning Man, be warned that almost every flight is sold out.
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