What Anti-Airport Leaders Say About JWA.
The following letter from the Editor of the El Toro Airport Info Site was published in the OCBJ of January 11, 1999. The author is a member of the El Toro Coalition and works with the leaders of groups such as ETRPA, Taxpayers for Responsible Planning and Project 99. The original text of the letter is presented here before minor changes by the Journal.
In a Dec. 21 story, making reference to the El Toro Airport website that
I edit, the OCBJ states, “Kranser's position (is) that John Wayne
Airport should be expanded to full capacity.” This statement requires
clarification.I do not advocate physical expansion of John Wayne Airport and so stated
at the Sept. 15 Board of Supervisors meeting. However, I do decry the
waste caused by the current artificial limits on the number of
passengers served at John Wayne. The outdated 1985 agreement, which
limits passenger count, forces airlines to leave many seats empty and
contributes to high air fares.In a website editorial, "Why Fly Five Million Empty Seats?", I recommended
two remedial actions: “First, allow the airlines to sell as many of the 5 million
empty seats as they can, on the present flights, without adding a single
airplane to the skies over Newport Beach or changing the airport's
nighttime curfew. Second, encourage the airlines that already
operate the newer, quieter, wide body Boeing 757s from John Wayne to
substitute them for smaller, noisier jets like MD-80s and B-737s on more
of their flights. This will take care of even more passengers without
adding more flights or noise.” That is my position.The only parties talking of expanding John Wayne are the County of
Orange, which estimated JWA's unrestricted capacity to be 15 million
annual passenger, or about twice current utilization, (MCAS El Toro
Community Reuse Plan Appendix C, page 21), and proponents of an El Toro
Airport, who want to panic Newport Beach residents into joining their camp.Anti-airport leaders in South County do not advocate physical expansion
of John Wayne, or an increase in the number of its flights, or the
introduction of night time operations -- which is what the county is
planning for El Toro. We intend to do unto others as we would have them
do unto us.Leonard Kranser
Editor
El Toro Airport Info Site