Disney World and Disneyland are unique in a number of ways.
Most of them are the experiences right in front of you and in some cases, such as the
Magic Kingdom’s utilidors, it’s under you.
However another unique aspect of the parks consists of what is, or more accurately, what
isn’t above you: aircraft.
Disney World and Disneyland share the unique trait of being some of the only commercial
establishments granted a permanent no-fly zone in the United States.
Why are the Disney parks no fly zones, how did they get that way, and does it even matter?
The Federal Aviation Administration calls these no fly zones “temporary flight restrictions”,
which is kind of ironic in Disney’s case since they’re effectively permanent, but
I’ll get to that in a minute.
By and large TFR’s aren’t uncommon but they are typically, as their name suggests, temporary.
Major sporting events. Rocket launches. Forest fires.
The flight restrictions come and go as the events come and go and most of them last anywhere
from a couple of hours to a couple of days.
Disney’s TFR is entering it’s 18th year.
As many might suspect, the initial flight restriction was put into place in the fall
of 2001 after the attacks on New York and Washington DC.
According to the Orlando Sentinel who themselves cited an internal email from 2002, Disney
directly reached out to the acting head of the FAA’s Air Traffic Services in order
to get the flight restriction put into place, and as you might guess it was done for safety reasons.
The country had just witnessed the worst attack on American soil and it was perpetrated with
planes, and both Disney World and Disneyland were unquestionable American icons.
So it wasn’t a stretch at the time to assume they could be targets that needed protecting.
The flight restriction forbid almost all aircraft from flying in the airspace at altitudes under 3,000 feet.
It covered Disneyland and Disney’s California Adventure over in Anaheim, and in Florida
it covered the Magic Kingdom and part of Epcot.
This is why today you could still spot aircraft such as helicopters flying by Epcot and Hollywood
Studios, as one is on the border, and the other is outside of it.
The Animal Kingdom, at that point, actually already had a noise-sensitive area established,
which means that aircraft were requested (but not required) to stay above 2,000 feet for
the sake of the animals below.
So while it covers the most crucial parts of the property, it doesn’t encompass all of Disney World.
I say almost all aircraft because military, rescue, and police aircraft were all exempt
from from the restrictions.
Now I can’t talk about these flight restrictions without talking about the debate over their effectiveness.
When it comes to the speeds that aircraft can travel, a three mile radius isn’t that large.
Many people at the time criticized not only Disney’s no-fly zones, but the sporting
event no-fly zones as well, labeling them as a useless gesture.
If anybody was going to try anything nefarious, a flight restriction certainly wasn’t going to stop them.
And at just three miles, by the time the violation was even noticed it’d be too late to do anything about it.
Those on the other side of the debate, however, argued that while it might not actually stop
anything, it goes a long way in easing the mind of the public, and if there’s no cost
to achieve that, then why not do it?
However there was more to it than just the safety or the perceived safety that came with
the flight restriction.
You see, the day Disney received its no-fly zone was the day Disney won the battle against
aerial banner advertising.
It had been a thorn in Disney’s side for decades.
Up until then, there was nothing stopping a plane from circling the Magic Kingdom or
Disneyland with banner ads for night clubs, or amusement parks, or whatever somebody with
enough money wanted to advertise.
For a company that was all about creating an immersive environment for guests, a big
flying banner ad was a major pain.
Throughout 2002 the FAA began to grant waivers to such banner pilots so that they could operate
within the no-fly zone, and so that’s when Disney turned to congress.
According to that same Orlando Sentinel report, members of congress accomodated the requests
of a lobbyist for Disney and made an addition to a congressional spending bill that would
enforce not only Disney’s no-fly zones, but the sporting event no-fly zones as well.
With the passing of the bill in the spring of 2003, that flight restriction was no longer
optional and the banner ads once again disappeared.
That same year a Christian group called The Family Policy Network tried to challenge the
restriction in court, arguing that it was a violation of their first amendment rights,
as they could no longer fly the anti-gay messaging that they originally wanted to fly over the
Magic Kingdom.
A few days later it was shot down in court and the flight restriction was upheld.
Today, sixteen years later, the temporary flight restriction is still in place.
While there are some vocal opponents to the principle behind the no-fly zone, it largely
goes unnoticed.
The Orlando Sentinel would ultimately take the position that the zone was the fault of
congress, who was quick to accommodate Disney.
And perhaps because the largest impact is that it cuts down on advertising, there just
happens to be fewer people willing to fight against it.
It’s a unique aspect of the Disney park experience, and like many others, it’s one
that came to be out of a specific set of circumstances.
Specific enough that a no-fly zone like this likely won’t ever happen again to any other
theme park in the country.
It’s just another element that makes the Disney Parks one of a kind.