John Wayne vs. El Toro

* The recent John Wayne Airport incident involving a jet blowing a tire, and the subsequent airport closure, exposes one of the many fatal flaws in the reliance on John Wayne to serve future regional airport needs (“Jet Blows Tires on Landing,” Dec. 9).

With John Wayne’s single 5,700-foot runway becoming unavailable, thousands of people, both in the air and on the ground, were put at risk by leaving all the incoming flights no alternative place to land. The horrific consequences of jets running out of fuel with nowhere to land is a recipe for disaster.

In contrast, had the same incident occurred at El Toro, additional runways would have rendered this potential catastrophe into a nonevent. All the rhetoric in the world could not have stated a more clear case for the absolute necessity for converting El Toro into a commercial airport.

TOM ANDERSON

Newport Beach

* The recent closing of John Wayne airport for hours because of a minor accident resulting from a hard landing and blown tires makes it obvious that it would be utterly irresponsible to turn El Toro into any other use than to supplement the traffic at John Wayne.

Certainly an airport of comparable capacity and with similar restrictions to John Wayne would have no significant effect of any kind on the residents of South County, and would be much quieter than the noise that the military planes used to make from the very beginning before any of the residences anywhere close to El Toro were even there.

JERRY PARKS

Newport Beach

* I am outraged that county officials are working to extend John Wayne Airport’s passenger caps and night curfews while pursuing a second airport at El Toro.

The pro-airport supervisors, Newport Beach and the Airport Working Group have been telling residents for years there is a huge air traffic demand in the county that can only be met by a new airport at El Toro. Yet at the same time they are seeking to extend the most severe flight restrictions of any airport of its size in the country at John Wayne.

If the county truly were concerned about meeting air traffic demand, it would not eliminate the easiest way to meet that demand--by increasing flights at an existing airport.

MIKE KILROY

Aliso Viejo

* This is in response to your editorial “Pressure at John Wayne”(Nov. 26). What pressure? Five times this month I drove my wife to John Wayne on business trips to catch a flight departing at 7:35 a.m. for the Bay Area.

Each time, I spent over one hour there to judge for myself the so-called Orange County air travel pressure by walking the length of the terminal. There was some flow of people but not the crowd one would expect at peak early morning hours. All the boarding gate seats either were almost empty or about one-third full, except for Gate 10 by the gift shop area. One day at 8 a.m., on my way back to the parking area, I counted only 39 people at the Delta, American, Continental and Alaska counters combined. The previous time there were only 50.

Where is all the pressure when we have a brand new remodeled facility at 50% of its physical capacity, where the passenger count is well under its legal cap of 8.4 million, which expires in 2005?

NICOLAS G. DZEPINA

Mission Viejo

* I wish to thank George Argyros for his clear description of the need for the El Toro commercial airport. (“Time for a Rational Approach to Settle the Airport Dispute,” Orange County Voices, Dec. 3.) His outline of the details covers all of the important points and should reassure people who fear the effects of an airport. Unfortunately, South County opponents continue to criticize Argyros as having some other motive for supporting the airport.

Although the El Toro airport was conceived as a 38-million-passengers-per-year facility, there is a growing realization that only a large, hub airport such as LAX can handle the long international flights. Even Ontario airport is not able to serve these overseas flights because it lacks the interconnecting flights. Therefore, El Toro will be able to handle mid-length national flights. This does not mean that El Toro is not needed. We cannot continue to export most of our passenger and cargo flights to surrounding counties.

Argyros is a disinterested public-spirited citizen who knows how important the El Toro airport is for Orange County’s future. He has no financial interest in the airport, unlike the paid staff of El Toro Reuse Planning Authority in South County.

LARRY ROOT

Newport Beach

* Achim Krauss (Letters, Dec. 10) felt that the voters in Orange County had been cheated out of making the right decision about the El Toro airport. He considered Measure F a means of fixing a real problem by putting the power back in the hands of the local voters. Krauss undoubtedly is speaking for many South County residents who had been misinformed about the airport and about the legality of Measure F.

Krauss and others do not seem to accept the fact that Measure F was designed by its authors to be confusing and ambiguous. An Irvine councilman, Mike Ward, admitted this. Three disparate issues were tied together in order to offer voters a “pie-in-the-sky” solution to county problems. Orange County voters should not blame the judge for declaring it unconstitutional. They should be blaming the high-priced consultants who resorted to trickery in their design of Measure F to defeat the El Toro airport.

SHIRLEY A. CONGER

Corona del Mar

* James Flanigan gets the “facts” wrong in his article, “New El Toro Would Help LAX,” (Dec. 7). He says that because regional air travel demand will grow from 98 million passengers annually to 180 million by 2020, a new 14-million annual passenger airport at El Toro is needed. The bulk of this regional growth will be in the Inland Empire, nearest Ontario and March airports. New regional airport capacity is needed in the Inland Empire, not in South County. Why force millions of new Inland Empire passengers to travel to Orange County, over already overburdened ground transportation corridors?

He states that John Wayne Airport is limited today to 7 million annual passengers, and will grow to 9 million. Actually, John Wayne is currently limited to 8.5 million, current use is only 7.5 million, and the airport as configured is capable of serving 12 million to 14 million with current nighttime curfews, or 18 million to 20 million with curfews removed. Total Orange County air passengers were about 12.5 million passengers in 1999 (40% of this at LAX), and growth should be no more than 25%, translating to an Orange County “demand” of no more than 15 million passengers annually at county “build-out” in 2020. John Wayne can and should handle Orange County air traffic demand for the next 20 years and beyond, without new airport construction.

MICHAEL SMITH

Mission Viejo