They did not have years to apply for anything. You can't apply for something you don't know you were planning to do. Also the FAA is overloaded and can't handle

They did not have years to apply for anything. You can't apply for something you don't know you were planning to do. Also the FAA is overloaded and can't handle applications for all possible plans. So they need to pick and choose and if plans change because of new developments then they need to apply again.