ICAT research recognized with 2025 Jay Hollingsworth Speas Airport Award
Boston Logan International Airport has received the 2025 Jay Hollingsworth Speas Airport Award for work done with researchers in the MIT International Center for Air Transportation (ICAT) on mitigating aircraft noise. Beginning in 2016, Sandro Salgueiro (SM ‘17 PhD ‘24) Prof. John Hansman, and other ICAT researchers collaborated with community groups and operational stakeholders to develop four new low-noise flight procedures that are now being deployed at Boston Logan International Airport.
From AIAA:
“The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) congratulates Boston Logan International Airport (BOS) as the winner of the 2025 Jay Hollingsworth Speas Airport Award for designing new low-noise flight procedures to actively reduce aviation noise impacts around the airport while also providing a reduction in fuel burn.
The Jay Hollingsworth Speas Airport Award honors an individual or individuals judged to have contributed most significantly in recent years to the enhancement of relationships between airports and/or heliports and other surrounding environments via exemplary innovation that might be replicated elsewhere. The award is cosponsored by AIAA, the American Association of Airport Executives (AAAE), and the Airport Consultants Council (ACC).
“The Award Committee is pleased to recognize the excellent collaborative work by MIT and Massport to reduce aircraft noise for residents under Boston Logan International Airport approach paths while simultaneously reducing fuel burn and distance traveled,” said R. Dixon “Dirk” Speas Jr., brother of Jay Hollingsworth Speas in whose memory the award was established 40 years ago by their father, R. Dixon Speas. “It is our hope that other airports and communities will benefit from the methodologies utilized.”
The following representatives from the collaborating organizations will accept the award during the awards luncheon on 13 March at the 2025 AAAE/ACC Airport Planning, Design, and Construction Symposium in San Antonio, Texas:
R. John Hansman, T. Wilson Professor of Aeronautics & Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Flavio Leo, Director of Aviation Planning and Strategy, Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport)
Jacqueline Huynh, Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California Irvine
Sandro Salgueiro, Airspace Integration Engineer, SkyGrid”
