Burbank Airport Study Predicts Huge Surge in Passenger Traffic

Passenger volume at Burbank Airport will double within 15 years and double again in the ensuing two decades, requiring construction of a massive terminal and parking lots, consultants say.

The airport, served by six airlines, is heading for a record 3.4 million passengers this year, Greer said, largely because of a fare war ignited in April by Southwest Airlines.

In a report that generated renewed controversy Tuesday over airport expansion, KMPG Peat Marwick, San Francisco-based airport consultants, said the number of passengers will double to 7 million by 2005.

By 2025, passenger volume could grow to 14 million, said Peat Marwick’s Robert H. Doyle, who cautioned that “the farther you get in the future the less reliable your projections will be.”

By comparison, Los Angeles International Airport handled 44.9 million passengers last year, according to the Los Angeles Department of Airports, and Ontario International Airport had 5.3 million,

To serve the 7 million passengers projected by 2005, Burbank Airport would have to replace its 136,000-square-foot terminal, built in 1930, with a 477,000-square-foot facility, the consultants said. By 2025, a 792,000-square-foot terminal would be needed.

The airport also must boost the number of airplane loading gates from the present 15 to 34 over the next 35 years, consultants said.

The Federal Aviation Administration has been pressuring the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority, which owns the airport, to build a terminal because its present building is too close to runways to meet modern safety regulations.

Peat Marwick was hired to determine what size terminal will be needed and to find a location. The report’s projections were a first step in that process.

Future studies will deal with the broader questions of what kind of impact such an expansion would have.

The leading candidate among sites under consideration appears to be on the airport’s northeast corner, where Lockheed Corp. is selling off a large chunk of land as part of its move out of Burbank.

Also being studied are three split-terminal plans under which parking and ticket selling would be on different sides of the airport.

East San Fernando Valley anti-noise groups are hoping for a site that will encourage more takeoffs toward Glendale and Pasadena, thus reducing noise in their area.

Airport officials say improved technology has consistently reduced airport noise, and they expect that trend to continue.

Nonetheless, the projections in the report triggered renewed criticism Tuesday by homeowner group leaders who have been fighting to reduce noise at the 60-year-old airport.

“It proves they planned all along to create a mini-LAX out here,” said Tom Paterson, a North Hollywood homeowner activist who represents a coalition of seven groups fighting airport noise.

“Yes it would be a substantial increase,” conceded airport manager Thomas E. Greer, director of airport services, “but we will continue to be a medium-size airport serving short-haul passengers. We will never be anything like LAX.”