Residents are grappling with increasingly disruptive air traffic, but a court settlement makes addressing the issue much more difficult there than in other neighborhoods.

The South End has dealt with plane traffic for years, but recent months have brought the issue to a crescendo. As Logan International Airport attracts more international flights, planes have begun taking off earlier and earlier.

“Originally flights were supposed to start at 7:00 a.m. As of today, flights are departing every single day beginning at 5:00 a.m.,” said Steve Fox, chair of the South End Forum. “It’s very loud, it’s very disruptive. It’s repetitive, concentrated noise over a small corridor.”

The South End is far from the only neighborhood struggling with air traffic, but other sections of the city may soon see some relief.

A two-year MIT study commissioned by the Massachusetts Port Authority and the Federal Aviation Administration found a range of recommendations for every surrounding area that should be able to achieve a “clear noise benefit with limited technical barriers.” Every area, that is, except the South End.

The obstacle is a court settlement from 1995, when a coalition of interests in the South End, Chinatown, and the Back Bay sued to diminish traffic flying over their neighborhoods.

The resulting settlement agreed to limit air traffic to a single traffic pattern going over the South End and Roxbury.

At the time, the area was largely unoccupied, but recent years have seen it fill with residential neighborhoods. Those neighborhoods now find themselves buried under the concentrated gains in air traffic.

“The South End and Roxbury have been just unable to deal with the traffic, the noise, the particulates dropped by airplane engines. All of it has been threaded into this very narrow corridor, and everybody under it is subject to repetitive flights, one right after another,” said Fox.

Representatives of those neighborhoods are now petitioning the city to reopen the agreement and find a way to better distribute air traffic.

The political process for that isn’t clear at this stage, and would depend on how exactly the city and civic groups decide to attack the issue. For now, residents are just focused on getting mayor Michelle Wu to the table to figure out the best approach.

“It’s time to throw out the old 1995 agreement and figure out how to equitably treat these communities,” said Fox. “It’s not just a noise issue. It’s an environmental justice issue. The Seaport didn’t exist when the agreement was made. It was supposed to keep planes away from populated areas, but those populated areas have moved to occupy that space.” Until a solution can be found, the problem is only going to get worse.

“People come to me all the time. It used to be monthly, now it’s weekly that I hear complaints from people who can’t sleep. As MassPort continues to advertise early morning flights to Europe, it creates an environment where the needs of the community surrounding the airport are put on a back burner,” he said.