Why airplanes need to change routes

In the brouhaha over an increase — and, presumably, corresponding decrease for some people — in aircraft noise with revised flight patterns at the Minneapolis St. Paul Airport, there hasn’t been much coverage of the context for the changes.

It’s called NextGen and the FAA has been working toward for years as it tries to get away from a fairly antiquated system of airplane navigation in the era of GPS.

Here’s how it’s supposed to work.