Airplanes go by Bill Brough’s Marine Hills home about every 90 seconds, he says.

“I find it unacceptable that I can’t stand outside and talk to my neighbor, I have to wait for it to be gone,” Brough said about the aircraft noise.

At night, Brough said he has to wear earplugs if he leaves his window open to cool his house down during this hot summer.

Like many, Brough, a former flight deck designer engineer, is concerned the noise will depreciate his house, which he’s lived in since 1976.

“My home has been devalued by $100,000 because of the noise and so has every other home in the neighborhood,” he said.

Neil Corbin, a Twin Lakes area resident for about 22 years, said he has become extremely concerned and anxious about the commercial aircraft flying over his home.

“Beginning in 2015, we started experiencing extreme high levels of noise during all hours of the day and night,” Corbin said. “It’s getting to the point where we cannot hear ourselves think.”

Michael Kun, who lives near Silver Lake Elementary, said he’s noticed the noise has gotten worse in the last six months but his several complaints to the Sea-Tac noise complaint line have left him with no response.

According to Federal Way city officials, Brough, Corbin and Kun aren’t alone in their concerns.

“We had an increase this summer in complaints — neighbors and citizens saying, ‘Wow, it just seems like we’ve experienced more, what seems to be going on?’” said Cathy Schrock, city spokeswoman.

To figure out just what’s been going on, Chief of Staff Brian Wilson reached out to the Port of Seattle, and he and Federal Way Mayor Jim Ferrell recently met with Port of Seattle representatives.

According to Schrock, they learned Sea-Tac Airport’s main runway that has been under construction has caused an increased amount of planes to utilize the remaining two runways. This has affected the frequency of planes taking off.

And because construction is limited to six months — it’s set to be done this October — the Port of Seattle wasn’t required to do an environmental review.

Also within the last five months, the Federal Aviation Administration authorized air traffic to use a global positioning system (known as GPS) for take-offs and landings as opposed to fixed locator beacons.

“This has resulted in airplanes changing flight patterns,” Schrock said. “Anybody who didn’t have a flight over their house may see more of that now.”

The switch to GPS allows airlines to save money on fuel, she added.

“By doing it the way they’re doing it now, they’re saving a tremendous amount of money on fuel but the people in Federal Way are paying the penalty in noise,” Corbin said.

Port of Seattle spokesman Perry Cooper confirmed traffic does become more centered on airplane approach due to satellite navigation.

“You can think of the old system like three lanes of traffic,” he said. “The aircraft could come in anywhere in that space of three lanes. Now with the satellite technology, they will be dialed in directly to the middle lane, so aircraft that might have been off the middle to the left or right lanes, will now be right down the middle lane.”

Cooper said there’s also an increase of flights in the summer.

“It happens every year,” he said. “We’ve had 100 flights a day more here this month than we did back in April.”

And more flights in general.

This July, Sea-Tac Airport is up 13.4 percent in flights compared to July of last year.

“For July, we broke the all-time record for passengers in one month with more than 4.4 million,” Cooper added. “That broke the previous record of 4 million in June.”

With an expectation of August breaking July’s record, Cooper said June through August has always been Sea-Tac’s busiest time of the year as opposed to the holidays, which is common for other airports around the country.

Cooper said they’ve received a few more calls from the Federal Way area but “nothing dramatic.”

In fact, he says calls are down from last summer. From June 1-Aug. 24 the Port of Seattle received 36 complaints from Federal Way residents. Last year, they received 55 calls during the same time period.

Because the Federal Way area isn’t within the boundaries for noise mitigation programs, programs he says are some of the best to date, not much can be done.

Homes within the noise boundaries, which experience noise measured as 65 Day Night Level, an annual average — can receive funding for sound insulation. Homes outside of the boundary experience below 65 Day-Night Level and don’t qualify.

“Sea-Tac has spent over $400 million on sound insulation, and acquisition and relocation of residents over the entire time of the program,” Cooper said. “Over 9,300 single family homes have been insulated and $100 million has been provided to Highline Public Schools for sound insulation with another $6 million going to Highline College.”

The Federal Aviation Administration created those boundaries using a variety of analytics through the Part 150 Noise and Land Use Compatibility Study.

In 2012, Port of Seattle put in a noise monitoring device to measure the noise in the Marine Hills area but that noise apparently didn’t “rise up to the level of mitigation.”

“The machine might say, ‘Yep, that’s fine,’ but the machine doesn’t have to sleep,” Brough said about the noise monitoring device.

As the device was removed in 2013, the Port of Seattle concluded a Part 150 study in October 2013. The study was done during Sea-Tac airport’s master planning.

Cooper said, based on the study, it was determined again that aircraft noise wouldn’t be enough of a problem for abatement.

Brough believes there is a solution to this problem but it would only be a reality if there were penalties involved, which there aren’t.

“One of the big problems is there is no penalty for flying over these homes,” he said.

He believes that pilots should ascend 2,000 feet and turn west instead of ascending 3,000 feet before turning on their flight path. When they land, instead of coming down at a glide slope of 2-3 degrees at a consistent rate, pilots use the “stair step” approach. Brough said this means they glide down, apply power and repeat, which makes controlling easier but more noise each time they pull the throttle back.

Schrock said the city officials will wait to see if the complaints persist after summer and after construction is complete on the third runway before they take any more action.

In the meantime, the city is forwarding all complaints to the Port of Seattle and urges Federal Way residents to contact Linda Stewart, the director of community partnerships with Sea-Tac Airport at 206-787-7983.