Orange County Business Journal, August 20, 2007

VIEWPOINT

The following is the original version submitted to the newspaper. A slightly shortened version was published in the August 20-26, 2007 issue.

RATIONING SEATS AT JOHN WAYNE

By LEONARD KRANSER

While the public’s attention was riveted on the heated political battle over El Toro, and a final upcoming countywide vote on whether to build a second Orange County airport, quieter administrative actions were being taken to seal the future of the county’s existing airport. Orange County businesses and resident travelers never got to vote on plans to ration seats at John Wayne Airport.

In 2001, the county Board of Supervisors certified Environmental Impact Report 573 for a commercial airport at El Toro. As required by state law, the EIR included two no-El Toro alternatives.

<>The smaller of these, Alternative F was a plan for optimizing John Wayne Airport - within the airport’s current property limits - to serve 14 million annual passengers. That was almost twice the number served during the prior year. The estimated $350 million plan included 29 jet aircraft gates, 8 commuter gates and a lengthened main runway. The night curfew would continue.

That JWA could handle more traffic is validated at San Diego’s Lindbergh Field where a single runway airport, on a slightly larger site, operating with a night time curfew, served 17.4 million annual passengers (MAP) last year.

<>In 2002, as it became clearer that Orange County voters would reject El Toro Airport proposal, the City of Newport Beach concluded a series of well-executed maneuvers to insure that John Wayne Airport did not expand as envisioned in EIR 573. With three years yet to run before the expiration of a 1985 agreement that limited airport utilization, Newport inked a deal with the county to extend restrictions on the airport until 2015.  <>

The county Board of Supervisors – with El Toro advocates Chuck Smith, Jim Silva and Cynthia Coad making up the majority – certified a new environmental impact report EIR 582 for John Wayne’s future. They selected the smallest growth scenario studied in EIR 582 and voted to increase the airport’s passenger limits from 8.4 million annual passengers (MAP) to 9.8 MAP – the first increase in 13 years.

<>The 2002 deal was so restrictive that the airlines serving John Wayne threatened to block it. The county gave in and amended its preferred alternative to increase the number of allowed passengers to 10.3 MAP through 2011 and to 10.8 MAP through 2015.   <>

Any increase beyond 10.8 million passengers will require a new environmental impact report and be subject to litigation. A Newport Beach citizens group is already lobbying against any increase with the mantra “10.8 and lock the gate.”  <>

As a product of the 2002 agreement, JWA is commencing work on a new terminal bringing the number of jet loading bridges to 20 – and thereby foreclosing construction of alternatives for 24 or more gates studied in EIR 582 or the 27 jet gate proposal of EIR 573. By using precious space to build less capacity, the $652 million “improvement project” curtails the airport’s potential to expand service. 

Without more gates, it is difficult for new airlines, offering flights to new destinations, to start service at John Wayne. 

<>Individuals on both sides of the airport discussion have questioned the economic value of spending over ½ half billion dollars to provide a 300,000 square foot terminal, so few additional gates and 2,500 additional parking spaces when there are no plans to utilize the investment to provide substantially more air travel service.  <>

Airport management, taking its lead from Board of Supervisors policy, claims that the improvements are necessary to satisfactorily accommodate the 10.8 million annual passengers allowed under the 2002 agreement. Management is unwilling to discuss any additional capacity increase resulting from the project. It claims that the airport is “busting at the seams” and as it stands today, has only an 8.4 MAP “design capacity”.   <>

This is unconvincing. Efficient scheduling – as practiced at San Diego’s airport – encourages carriers to add flights at off peak hours when it is not busting at the seams.   <>

Moreover, JWA “design capacity” was calculated over 20 years ago, in the early 1980’s. Since then, newer larger quieter aircraft, improved air traffic control procedures, and increases in aircraft load factors – the number of seats that airlines are filling on each flight - enable airports to routinely exceed their original design capacities.   <>

There is evidence of this at JWA. In both June and July, the airport served over 900,000 passengers. It is hitting a level of service this summer that the county says it must add a new third terminal to sustain.  <>

This is despite the restrictions imposed by the 2002 agreement. Airline requests to add a million seats of passenger capacity this year were denied by the county because of the agreement. If the airport continues to operate at a rate projected to hit the MAP cap, we anticipate that airlines will be ordered to cut flights or fly with more empty seats to stay under the agreement’s limits.  <>

This writer never advocated physical expansion of John Wayne Airport, just utilization of what we have. The current costly expansion is viewed skeptically as building more seats on the ground without plans for a proportionate increase in seats on airplanes. If there is no intent to increase flights to more destinations, why spend the money?  <>

Now, Orange County is in a box. On one hand, voters rejected El Toro Airport, in part because they expected John Wayne Airport capacity to grow and keep up with the county’s growing population. The county’s EIR 573 told them so, with its 14 MAP alternative. On the other hand, the county gave up its chance to maximize utilization of John Wayne by extending its agreement with Newport Beach until 2015 and commencing to fill up the available space at the airport with what may not be the optimally designed terminal.

Constraining airport noise impacts on the neighbors is an understandable goal for Newport Beach and county officials. Officials at nearly every airport in the region have the same goal. But there are competing goals such as fully utilizing any investment in infrastructure to serve the broader public’s need for air transportation.

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Some of today’s supervisors may still be in office when Newport Beach again asks to extend the settlement agreement. We can only hope that they will look at the demand for air travel capacity and balance the competing pressures regarding use of the airport.  <> 


Kranser is founder and editor of eltoroairport.org, which follows news and developments at Southland airports.