Airport Debate

Newport Beach City Council needs to make up its mind

As a weekly user of John Wayne Airport, I find it disconcerting that

the City Council continues to attempt to impose severely restrictive

limits for the airport while promoting area growth by continuing to issue

building permits.

Increased development and a growing Newport Beach population means

increased demand for air transportation. As a minimum, increased air

traffic should be set at a minimum percentage growth that mimics the

increase in local population growth. You can’t have it both ways.

ROBERT A. LEWINTER

Newport Beach

Costa Mesa, Newport should support an airport at El Toro

Many in Newport Beach and Costa Mesa are not aware of the threat to

our two cities. Most everybody agrees that John Wayne Airport should not

expand and that the curfew on night flights should be continued. However,

the important connection between the opening of an El Toro airport and

the cap on John Wayne is somehow ignored.

National figures on air passenger transportation predict a 50% rise in

passenger demand by the year 2010. The Southern California Assn. of

Governments is more conservative in its predictions, but here again the

expansion of projected air traffic is enormous. The group expects Orange

County to take care of 29 million passengers by 2025. The increase in air

cargo traffic is going up threefold.

With these kinds of pressures on airlines and airports, there is no

way that John Wayne Airport limits can be maintained without an El Toro

commercial airport handling at least as much traffic. To think otherwise

is illusory. We need to support the opening of an El Toro airport as an

adjunct to John Wayne.

Without El Toro, Newport Beach, eastern Costa Mesa and Newport Bay

will be irretrievably damaged by quadrupled air traffic within the next

10 years.

SHIRLEY CONGER

Corona del Mar