A Two-Airport System? That’s Too Hard to Believe

For the last several years, the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority has tried to find common ground with the elected leadership of the city of Newport Beach--the main protagonists in the push for an airport at El Toro. Our message has been simple: If, as you claim, you want John Wayne Airport to continue to operate at its current court-imposed limit of 8.4 million passengers per year, we will support your efforts if you agree to stop your push to inflict an airport on our community.

In recent weeks, the Newport Beach City Council has adopted a hard-line stance. Ironically, while they refer to South County residents as NIMBYs, these same officials steadfastly insist that the number of passengers at John Wayne should remain capped at less than half its design capacity and that the airport should continue to have other restrictions. They advocate this while imposing on South County an airport that under federal law cannot be restricted.

In fact, the county plan specifically rejects curfews of any type. Our neighborhoods will be forced to endure as many as 840 flight operations per day, seven days a week, 24 hours a day. We cannot continue to allow Newport Beach to pursue a deliberate policy advocating a major commercial airport at El Toro.

Although Newport Beach leadership and the county airport planners insist that we will have a two-airport system with John Wayne and El Toro, all aviation experts who have commented on Orange County’s airport plan agree that when El Toro opens, John Wayne will close to commercial traffic.

Recent murmurs about a kinder, gentler El Toro underscore the implausibility of a two-airport system and reveal the true agenda involved in replacing one airport with another. The bait-and-switch is evident as the county continues to keep the 38-million-annual-passenger El Toro airport as the proposal of record, even though airport proponents talk about a smaller El Toro much like John Wayne. Though the county and pro-airport leadership claim the closure of John Wayne is not their goal, it is clear that their underlying motivation is simply to move Orange County’s airport seven miles to the east.

After much debate, soul-searching and hope that our neighbors and their leaders in Newport Beach would come around, our board, as a last resort, adopted a resolution to oppose the efforts of Newport Beach to extend the current consent decree capping passengers at John Wayne that expires in 2005.

The resolution, however, emphatically endorses nighttime curfews at John Wayne--a restriction not in the county’s plan for El Toro. Physical expansion of John Wayne is also not favored by ETRPA. We would prefer to put our considerable legal, lobbying and grass-roots muscle into working with Newport Beach. Unfortunately, the city officials have shown us the back of their hand. We must insist that if El Toro is to remain on the table, John Wayne must remain as well.

Having said this, we are convinced that the passenger demand numbers attributed to Orange County are grossly overstated. Our county is nearly built out. Most growth projections indicate that Orange County will grow by 10% to 14%--adding between 250,000 and 350,000 people--over the next 20 years. A corresponding increase in passengers at John Wayne would not even put that airport at its court-imposed limit of 8.4 million passengers.

By contrast, the Inland Empire is expected to grow by several million people. Ontario Airport, which is closer than El Toro to much of north Orange County, is struggling to attract passengers and cargo. More important, the communities surrounding the former March, Norton and George air bases want the passenger and cargo operations.

In fact, the developers of these bases have joined ETRPA because they know that an airport at El Toro will harm their reuse plan. They are ready, willing and able to handle all the cargo and, if necessary, passenger service the region can send their way.

There is no crisis in aviation capacity in Orange County. In fact, with so many airports in Southern California, it is more likely that the airports will have to work very hard to compete for business in the future.

Though the door is still open to Newport Beach to work with ETRPA instead of against us, the 2005 deadline on the consent decree is quickly approaching. We believe that Newport Beach stands to gain more by reaching out to its neighbors than by perpetuating this long and costly El Toro debate.

Allan Songstad is chairman of the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority and a member of the Laguna Hills City Council.