Officials Want Restrictions Left on John Wayne Flights

Orange County and Newport Beach are considering ways to retain the strict limits on jets operating at John Wayne Airport as voters prepare to decide in March whether to scrap plans for a new airport at El Toro.

Under current restrictions, John Wayne Airport can serve 8.4 million passengers per year.

But Newport Beach officials worry that if voters kill plans for an El Toro airport, there will be new calls for an expansion of John Wayne, whose flight path runs above the city.

So city and county officials want to continue controlling the airport’s size by extending the restrictions, which a federal judge approved in 1985 and which expire in 2005. The ruling restricts the number of passengers and regulated flights.

Regulated flights are those noisier than 86 decibels at takeoff. Airlines operating quieter aircraft can use them without restriction, except for the yearly cap on passengers using the airport.

John Wayne is one of only a handful of airports that have such agreements. Congress banned them in 1990.

The county expects John Wayne traffic to shrink once El Toro is built, although some predict that major airlines eventually would leave the smaller airport completely, with the much larger El Toro just seven miles away.

Five joint county-city proposals released this week consider modest growth at John Wayne Airport while extending controls for 10 more years, through 2015. Doing so would allow the airport to handle more of Orange County’s air travelers while limiting the potential effect of added noise, pollution and traffic, according to an environmental review of the new proposals.

“Many communities that are within close proximity to the airport would like to see no increase in the number of regulated flights or passengers being served at JWA,” the analysis said.

“Others, many not directly affected by airport operations, would like to see the amount of service at the airport increased.”

The latest expansion options include one that would remove all restrictions after 2005. The maximum capacity of the airfield--500 acres with one 5,700-foot runway--is 13.9 million passengers a year, the review said. Under the option, 10 loading gates would be added, bringing the total to 24.

Another scenario would retain the current restrictions. The remaining three offer different timetables for expanding the number of passengers, cargo flights and regular flights through 2015.

If the county and city agree on a plan, it must be approved by the two other community groups that signed the 1985 agreement--the Airport Working Group of Orange County and Stop Polluting Our Newport.

Even then, there is no guarantee that extending the court agreement past 2005 would go unchallenged by the airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration.

Throughout the discussion, the county and city have stood firm on two additional protections for airport-area neighbors: John Wayne’s nighttime curfew and the county’s ability to limit engine noise from jets taking off.

County and city attorneys argue that the protections can’t be challenged because they were approved before Congress voted to end the ability of airports to restrict operations.

The curfew dates to 1969; the noise limits to 1985.

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