Change in tack for battling JWA noise - Daily Pilot
Newport residents hoping technological advances will do what politics and a ballot measure failed to accomplish.
When voters chose to turn the Marine El Toro base into parkland instead of an airport, Newport's leadership turned away from politics and toward technology in its quest for quieter skies.
"The airport is the No. 1 quality-of-life issue in Newport Beach," said Mayor Keith Curry. "We'll do anything we can to reduce the impact and noise to our residents."
The city's latest effort, the result of a $75,000 report by GE Aviation Systems division Naverus, would have John Wayne as the site of a pilot program for the regular use of a departure procedure now reserved stateside for especially difficult take-offs surrounded by tough terrain.
Pilots departing from Juneau, Alaska, for example, have special permission to use the more-precise form of GPS navigation to help departing aircraft avoid mountains.
In Orange County, the procedure known as a Required Navigation Performance (RNP) departure, would guide airplanes through an extra curve to stay along the middle of the bay as it snakes toward the sea. That way, neither the west nor the east side of Newport's Back Bay, which is home to wildlife and lined by homes and on both sides, would bear the brunt of direct flyovers.
Of course, officials warn, this is all subject to Federal Aviation Administration approval.
Town Hall Meeting Planned in Opposition of LAX Expansion - Marinadelrey.patch.com
Local residents plan to meet this weekend to express their disapproval with plans to expand LAX.
The Los Angeles City Council voted on Tuesday in favor of a $4.8 billion plan to expand the airport and also modernize it. The project would move the airport’s north runway 260 feet closer to Westchester and Playa del Rey.
Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who described himself as "very disappointed" with Tuesday's vote, said the focus should be on “regionalism” and employing the use of the LA/Ontario International Airport.
“It’s better for everybody if we spread out where planes land,” Rosendahl said. “It’s insane to clog up LAX and clog up Westchester and Playa del Rey when, in fact, the jumbo jets belong in Ontario. So it’s not over yet.”
Denny Schneider, president of the Alliance for a Regional Solution to Airport Congestion, or ARSAC, agreed. ARSAC, who is joining forces with the SEIU and other organizations at this weekend’s town hall meeting, now plans to file a lawsuit, according to Schneider. He said they have no choice.
Website Editor: Prior to the Navy selling the former Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro to private developers, opponents of LAX expansion tried to take over the Orange County property in order to regionalize air traffic to "LAX South".
Los Angeles Approves $5 Billion Airport Modernization - Wall Street Journal.
The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday approved a politically divisive modernization and safety-enhancement plan for Los Angeles International Airport that is expected to cost nearly $5 billion.
Following a rowdy meeting punctuated by a split among council members and emotional opposition from some neighborhood groups that were worried about increased noise and pollution, the vote provided the green light to revamp and expand LAX's often cramped, 1960s-era facilities.
The plan, which is still subject to environmental studies and could face court challenges, seeks to comply with repeated demands by the Federal Aviation Administration to relocate the northernmost runway as a safety enhancement. One major goal is to make room to construct a taxiway between that runway and a parallel landing strip. Safety advocates have long argued that having such a taxiway—running the entire length of both runways—is essential to prevent pilots from mistakenly blundering into the path of other aircraft while landing or taking off.
Aviation experts and regulators for many years have highlighted LAX as a prime example of collision hazards posed by parallel runways located too close to each other.
The council's vote capped years of debate over how to make the airport more competitive with hubs in San Francisco and elsewhere, particularly in attracting the largest planes serving fast-growing trans-Pacific traffic.
Knabe says LAX has not done enough for airport regionalization - LA Times
A county report released Monday added fuel to the debate over whether the operator of Los Angeles International Airport is adequately trying to spread the growth of commercial flights to other airports in the area.
Requested by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in February, the study reviewed the efforts of Los Angeles World Airports to regionalize air traffic, a key requirement of a 2006 court settlement that ended a legal challenge to modernization plans at LAX.
"I'm somewhat disappointed. The report needs a more in-depth analysis of the regionalization issue," said Supervisor Don Knabe, who requested the review. "But in its own little way, it shows that there has not been a good faith effort by LAWA or any visible results at this point."
Knabe cited the severe decline of LA/Ontario International Airport while under the control of Los Angeles. On Tuesday, the supervisors are scheduled to vote on an endorsement of the effort -- a move Knabe says he supports.
Researchers added that Los Angeles officials have considered various management alternatives at Ontario and tried unsuccessfully to bring service to LA/Palmdale Regional Airport, the control of which is being transferred to the city of Palmdale.
April 22 -April 28, 2013
JWA traffic increases
Airline passenger traffic at John Wayne Airport increased in March 2013 as compared to March 2012. In March 2013, the Airport served 771,554 passengers, an increase of 6.0% when compared to the 727,841 passenger traffic count of March 2012.
Commercial aircraft operations increased 3.4%, while Commuter aircraft operations increased 3.5% when compared to the levels recorded in March 2012.
Long Beach Airport reconfiguration studied - AOPA.org
Long Beach Airport, owned and operated by the city of Long Beach, has five runways (each of them bidirectional), a host of flight schools and FBOs, and more than 250,000 operations a year including general aviation and commercial flights. All that activity on a layout that includes six runway intersections and a complex network of taxiways has propelled Long Beach near the top of the FAA list of airports with the highest number of incursions and surface incidents in the country—involving a mix of commercial, general aviation, and corporate flights.
With a $136 million terminal overhaul (including preservation of the historic original) now complete, attention is being focused on improving the movement areas in a cost-effective manner, making use of existing runways and taxiways where possible. Consultants hired by the city have developed four design options to mitigate the current safety issues, and the city has made a concerted and consistent effort to include operators—including local FBOs and flight schools, airlines, and AOPA—in the decision-making process. AOPA Vice President of Airport Advocacy Bill Dunn was invited to attend a recent meeting organized by the airport staff and consultants to brief the association on progress to date, and the options under consideration.
One of the four main alternative designs—each involving the consolidation of existing runways and taxiways or other strategies to reduce the number and complexity of intersections—will be chosen in the coming months.
April 15 - April 21, 2013
JWA limits move forward
Efforts have moved forward to extend limits on John Wayne Airport's flights, passengers and passenger loading bridges by an additional 15 years, to 2030. The curfew is to be extended until 2035.
On April 16, the Orange County Board of Supervisors approved a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the city of Newport Beach, the Airport Working Group (AWG) and Stop Polluting Our Newport (SPON) regarding the limitations. The MOU outlines several alternatives for utilizing JWA that will be studied in an Environmental Impact Report.
The MOU embodies the results of confidential negotiations between Orange County officials and the Newport Beach groups. Discussions were conducted out of sight of the media, the flying public and the business community.
The secrecy of these negotiations stands in stark contrast with the open debate over the commercial aviation reuse of the Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro which played out under intense public scrutiny. Attributes of an El Toro airport were reviewed and shaped by input from citizens countywide, business leaders, airlines, the air pilots' associations, interest groups at LAX, and local, state and federal officials.
The John Wayne negotiations were cloaked in confidentiality under an exemption from a state public disclosure law that allows, but does not require, secrecy about active litigatiion. The litigation cited in this situation was the case of County of Orange vs. Air California which ended with a 1985 Settlement Agreement.
John Mosier, a resident of Newport Beach, chided his city council recently over limiting discussion of the negotiations to closed sessions of the council from which the public and media were excluded. "Characterization of this as active litigation," he said, "is just a ruse to keep the public in the dark."
"It appears to be an affront to my idea of proper civics that matters of public policy between public agencies should be debated, deliberated and decided upon entirely out of the public eye," he said.
The MOU, previously executed by the city, AWG and SPON, defines roles and responsibilities with respect to preparation of an environmental impact report (EIR) pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The passenger, flight and facility restrictions negotiated by the parties for inclusion in the "proposed project" are likely to become the "preferred alternative" selected in the EIR.
While the public has an opportunity to comment on EIR's, their comments have little practical weight. So long as the EIR adequately describes the enviromental impacts of the project being studied, there is no requirement that the County select the alternative that makes the best use of the airport facility or best serves the public need for air travel service.
JWA Airport Manager Alan Murphy and his Deputy Courtney Wiercioch traveled to Washington on March 14 of last year, and again on January 30, 2013 to brief federal officials on the proposal that finally saw public daylight on March 21. The FAA review is necessary to insure legal compliance with the Airport Noise and Capacity Act.
Current restrictions, which expire in 2015, were the preferred alternative in EIR 582 which was completed and approved by the Board of Supervisors in 2002. That EIR was subsequently amended as a result of pressure from the air carriers.
In the latest round of negotiations, it was noted that the "carriers at JWA have been consulted on the proposal, but have not agreed to everything in it." There again could be changes to the airport restrictions after the formality of the EIR is completed.
Needs of Bob Hope Airport, airlines diverge- Burbank Leader
Different equations for success mean that the facility suffers.
It's been a rough two years for Bob Hope Airport, where a precipitous drop in the number of passengers using the regional airfield has meant a worrying drop in revenues.
Fewer passengers mean fewer receipts at parking lots, concessions and other revenue-generating enterprises that fund operations and pay for badly needed infrastructure upgrades.
"If the airlines reduced their rates at Burbank and made it more competitive, there would be more passengers and we'd be in better shape; there's no mystery to this," said Terry Tornek, a member of the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority.
The problem is, it's not that simple.
In a discouraging fact of life highlighted this week by a report commissioned by the airport authority, what's good for the airlines isn't necessarily good for Bob Hope Airport, and in fact, what's good for the airlines can put the two parties on two very different business models.
For the airport, the goal is to simply attract as many passengers as possible — more people using paid parking garages, more occupied seat fees to charge airlines, more concessions sales at the terminal.
For airlines, however, the most important goal is to deliver the highest return for shareholders, said Jack Penning, director of market analysis at Sixel Consulting Group, which compiled the report.
"They're trying to drive the highest amount of revenue per flight versus the lowest cost per flight," Penning said. "That balance doesn't always lie in accordance with what's best for an airport."
That means flying fewer, fuller flights in smaller planes — not good for an airport trying to get more passengers through its terminal.
Higher fares in Burbank are driving fliers to Los Angeles International Airport. For example, on March 31, a flight to Las Vegas was $120 out of LAX on multiple carriers. That same flight on the same carriers out of Burbank was $230.
Another constraint is Bob Hope's voluntary curfew, which stipulates that morning flights shouldn't leave until 7 a.m. Since carriers generally plan their first flights for 6 a.m., Burbank passengers can't make the first slate of connecting flights at hubs such as Seattle and Denver.
April 8 - April 14, 2013
Ontario pursues claim for return of airport to local control - SetOntarioFree.com
Asserting it would be too devastating for Los Angeles to continue to mismanage an airport nearly 60 miles from LAX, the City of Ontario submitted an administrative claim to the City of Los Angeles relating to L.A.'s control over Ontario International Airport. The claim seeks the termination of a Joint Powers Agreement between the two cities and the transfer of ONT to the Ontario International Airport Authority, among other remedies.
The filing of the claim came one day after Ontario formally rejected a counter offer by Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) to divest ONT for $474.5 million.
A study by the consulting firm Oliver Wyman released last week by the Ontario International Airport Authority calculated that ONT's valuation range currently is a range from negative $78 million to negative $104 million. Ontario officials noted none of the eight U.S. airports that shifted ownership from one government agency to another over the last 20 years involved a sale like that demanded by LAWA.
John Wayne passengers may get new thrill in zigzag takeoff - LA Times
In addition to that famously steep takeoff from John Wayne Airport, passengers aboard some departing jets in Orange County might be asked to endure multiple turns as pilots take a zigzag course as they lift off over Newport Beach.
The zigzag takeoff pattern – meant to reduce jet noise in the beach city – would be a first in the continental U.S.
Over the decades, the city has fought and sued in an effort to tame noise from the commercial airport, and flights in and out of John Wayne are now some of the most strictly controlled in the country.
Now the city is asking the Federal Aviation Administration to go a step further by requiring commercial jet pilots to make several turns during departure in order to stay over the Upper Newport Bay rather than “fanning out” over the neighborhoods near the bay.
The zigzag course would add another challenge for pilots and another potential thrill element for passengers.
Departing jets currently lift off with an abrupt and steep climb and then reduce power as the plane glides over Newport Beach toward the ocean. Under the proposal from the city, pilots also would be required to turn “two or more times” during takeoff in order to avoid drifting over homes.
April 1- April 7, 2013
Tough time landing airport - LA Times
Inland Empire officials seeking control of LA/Ontario International Airport are balking at an unprecedented demand by Los Angeles that they buy the struggling operation for hundreds of millions of dollars.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the agency that operates Ontario have insisted that the once-thriving aviation hub be sold at a price that helps recover the cost of improvements made over the years. Their studies estimate Ontario's fair market value at $243 million to $605 million.
Bad news continues for Bob Hope Airport - Burbank Leader
The number of passengers traveling through Bob Hope Airport fell by double digits for the second straight month in February, dropping 11.6%.
The airport handled 282,073 passengers in February, down from 309,259 in February 2012.
The latest decline follows a 12% nosedive in January. That drop, which surprised airport staff, came after a year that saw a steady slide in passengers.
So far this year, the airport has seen 642,789 passengers, a 10.4% drop from 642,789 passengers during the first two months of 2012.
The airport has been facing challenges with airline changes during the past 14 months.
In February 2012, American Airlines halted its operations at Bob Hope, a factor that has been cited repeatedly by staff to explain some of the passenger declines.
This past January, JetBlue Airways eliminated all daytime flights at the airport. There were 6,874 JetBlue passengers in February, compared to 21,075 in February 2012, a 67% drop.
In contrast, passenger numbers at other airports in the region didn't show a similar drop, increasing 6.1% at John Wayne Airport and basically holding steady with a 0.4% increase at Los Angeles International Airport. However, Ontario Airport, which has also been struggling with dwindling numbers of passengers, saw an 8.2% decline.
Website Editor: Passenger traffic also was down by 8.7% at Long Beach for the month and 6.4% for the year to date as airports compete with each other for a limited number of passengers.
WestJet ends non-stop O.C.-Calgary flights - OC Register
WestJet said Monday it would not resume flying non-stop between Orange County and Calgary in Canada this summer.
The seasonal route had "not performed to expectations," said Robert Palmer, a WestJet spokesman at the airline's headquarters in Calgary.
The Canadian airline will continue to fly non-stop to Vancouver.
WestJet
John Wayne Airport officials are disappointed by the Calgary decision, said airport spokeswoman Jenny Wedge. WestJet’s primary focus on the Calgary route was bringing Canadian visitors to Orange County for visits to local theme parks and beaches. The airport worked with Canadian tourist officials to tout the service in Calgary and also did some public relations outreach to increase visibility of the service in Southern California.
Alternatives revealed in JWA negotiations
The confidential negotiations between the City of Newport Beach, AWG, SPON, the County and possibly other unnamed parties have produced a "proposed project" and a minimum of three other alternatives to be studied in an environmental impact report.
Alternative A, based on the FAA's demand forecast dated January 2013, would have the airport expand service to 12.8 MAP by 2026 with 135 Class A ADD's (average daily departures).
Alternative B, based on input from JWA's commercial air service providers, would have the airport expand service to 15.0 MAP by 2026 with 115 Class A ADD's.
Alternative C, based on assumptions about the physical capacity of the JWA's airfield, would have the airport serve 16.9 MAP with 228 Class A ADD's.
The negotiated "proposed project" calls for 12.2 or 12.5 MAP by 2026 with only 95 Class A ADD's. See report below for more details.
Eventually the air carriers and the FAA may have a final say on the County's choice. In 2002, the air carriers pressed the County to accept more loading bridges than EIR 582 initially preferred.
