Commercial air travel over Canyon de Chelly in northeastern Arizona will soon be banned under a plan finalized last week by the National Park Service and the Federal Aviation Administration.
The plan, which was signed Thursday, will take effect in 180 days, according to a statement from the National Park Service. It prohibits commercial airline tour operators from flying over the park or within half a mile of its boundaries.
Canyon de Chelly is located within the Navajo Nation, on the edge of Chinle, Ariz. The monument was designated in 1931 “to protect prehistoric villages built between A.D. 350 and 1300,” according to the park service.
The monument is more than 80,000 acres and features a sandstone spire that towers hundreds of feet in the air, known as Spider Rock. More than 300,000 people visited Canyon de Chelly in 2023, figures from the NPS show.
On April 1, 1931, Canyon de Chelly National Monument was established.
“Prohibiting commercial air travel protects the cultural and spiritual significance of these lands to the Navajo Nation,” Park Superintendent Lyn Carranza said in the news release about the plan. “Canyon de Chelly National Monument’s Air Tour Management Plan honors the unique relationship between nations regarding decisions affecting the park and helps preserve one of the most important archaeological landscapes in the Southwest.”
Bruce Adams, owner and founder of New Mexico-based travel company Southwest Safaris, has been offering air travel through Canyon de Chelly for 50 years. He says he wasn’t surprised by the final air travel management plan, but he is disappointed.
“Now the agencies have alienated the community from us,” Adams said. “And we’re just speechless.”
Canyon de Chelly isn’t the only national park unit in the US where air travel is or soon will be effectively banned.
Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico and Mount Rushmore in South Dakota both have plans with similar restrictions. The air travel management plan for Washington’s Mount Rainier National Park, which was finalized more than two years ago, allows “a maximum of one air trip per year on a designated route.”
The National Park Service is working with the FAA to implement the National Park Air Tour Management Act of 2000, which requires operators seeking air travel to obtain FAA approval.
The law also requires the park service and the FAA to “prepare air travel management plans for parks or tribal areas for which applications are submitted,” the park service said.
A 2012 change allows the NPS and FAA to enter into voluntary agreements with tour operators instead of developing management plans.
Several operators — including Adams’ company Southwest Safaris — have entered into such an agreement with both agencies to continue air travel over Lake Mead National Recreation Area in northwestern Arizona “with more consistent reporting requirements for monitoring,” according to a statement from the National Park service.
This article originally appeared in the Arizona Republic: Commercial air travel banned over Canyon de Chelly
