Board OKs John Wayne Flight Caps Through 2015

John Wayne Airport would handle 1.4 million more passengers a year under a plan approved Tuesday. Orange County supervisors capped the airport’s size through 2015 even as voters next week could scuttle long-standing plans to build a second airport at El Toro.

The move came at the urging of officials from Newport Beach and a dozen other cities that lie under John Wayne flight paths. Those officials worry that adoption of Measure W on next week’s ballot--which would rezone the former Marine Corps air station for a park--would boost pressure to expand John Wayne.

John Wayne’s landmark restrictions are contained in a 1985 agreement, approved by a federal judge, that expires Dec. 31, 2005. John Wayne is one of two airports in the country that have local restrictions, which were banned by Congress in 1990. The other is Long Beach Municipal Airport.

Orange County and Newport Beach officials now must hammer out an agreement for the new restrictions with the airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration. The Air Transport Assn., which represents the nation’s leading airlines, warned that it will fight attempts to keep limits at John Wayne in place past 2006.

Showing a united front is critical going into those negotiations, several supervisors said Tuesday. The limited expansion was approved unanimously after a 90-minute discussion that started with only three supervisors--Jim Silva, Cynthia P. Coad and Todd Spitzer--expressing support. Silva, who began representing Newport Beach this year after redistricting, brokered the new limits.

The unanimity was striking because for eight years the county’s El Toro planning has been led by a bare majority--Coad, Silva and Supervisor Chuck Smith. Spitzer and Supervisor Tom Wilson have long opposed an airport at El Toro.

“I’ve received over 9,000 postcards and phone calls in support” from residents and city officials around the county, Silva said, holding up one of a dozen bags bulging with mail.

Under the plan, the number of passengers using John Wayne Airport each year would jump to a maximum of 9.8 million, from 8.4 million. The county currently limits to 73 the number of commercial flights allowed each day by the loudest aircraft; that number would increase to 85. The county also would build four new passenger gates, bringing the total to 18.

Smith agreed to go along with the plan after Newport Beach officials deferred to his request that the number of daily cargo flights be increased from two to four. Only 4% of cargo generated by Orange County is shipped out of John Wayne Airport, Smith said, with the rest loaded onto trucks and sent primarily from Los Angeles International and Ontario International airports.

Board’s Action Could Backfire, Wilson Warns

Wilson spent 20 minutes warning his colleagues that failing to negotiate passenger and flight limits with the airlines before arriving at a final number could backfire, with the county sued and possibly losing the ability to regulate John Wayne Airport after 2006. But he eventually bowed to Silva and Spitzer, who represent the so-called corridor cities under the flight paths.

Spitzer said the unity displayed by the county and cities over the new John Wayne limits, which he contrasted to the acrimonious split over the fate of El Toro, will be important in negotiations with the airlines and the FAA. Public support for an airport at El Toro has dropped since it was approved by voters in 1994, resulting in a virtual civil war between South County cities fighting the county’s plans and other cities backing them.

“This is the first time we all stand together as one county,” Spitzer said. “I feel much better going into this battle that we’re working together. Because we’ve become known in [Washington] D.C. and around the country as a county divided.”

Not everyone praised the expansion plan Tuesday. Residents from Santa Ana Heights, the neighborhood closest to John Wayne, said additional flights and traffic would destroy the area. The closest homes in Santa Ana Heights sit about 700 feet from the end of John Wayne’s runway.

Residents Ann Watt and Greg Carroll said the county’s environmental analysis of John Wayne, also approved Tuesday, ignored the effect of adding more aircraft pollution and traffic to the neighborhood.

But members of the Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, Tustin, Santa Ana and Anaheim city councils urged the county to adopt the limited expansion plan, as did officials with Orange and the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority, which represents a dozen south Orange County cities. The county also has a nighttime curfew for commercial flights at the airport. The curfew, adopted in the 1960s, would continue under the new plan.

“Decisions regarding [John Wayne] airport will not get any easier after March 5,” Costa Mesa Mayor Linda Dixon said. On a lighter note, supervisors began their discussion on the new limits by joking with Spitzer, who participated in the meeting by phone from Washington, where he is on business in his role as chairman of the Orange County Transportation Authority. Asked about his trip, Spitzer said his flight was canceled in St. Louis and that he still hadn’t received his luggage.

“If we had direct flights [to Washington], you wouldn’t have to worry about that,” Silva told Spitzer, a staunch opponent of a new airport at El Toro, noting that there are no direct flights to Washington out of John Wayne Airport.

“Hey, I thought my vote was important today,” Spitzer said.

Expanding Flights

Orange County supervisors unanimously approved extending landmark restrictions on the capacity of John Wayne Airport through 2015. The plan, which allows a modest increase in passengers and flights by the loudest aircraft, replaces an agreement that expires at the end of 2005.

Current Proposed

Annual Passengers 8.4 million 9.8 million

Regulated

Passenger flights* 73 85

Cargo flights (daily) 2 4

Loading Gates 14 18

*Flights noisier than 86 decibels at takeoff

Source: Orange County