County Boosts Spending On Controversial Airport;
American Airlines' Operations Chief Reiterates Industry Objections to El Toro Flight Paths and Proposed Two-Airport System

DANA POINT, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 29, 1999--On the heels of the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, Orange County prepares to add up to $27 million, to the more than $30 million spent to date, on planning for a controversial new airport. Plans for the airport recently drew renewed fire from airlines and pilots. In a June 14 letter, American Airlines Executive Vice President of Operations Robert W. Baker confirmed his airline's reservations concerning the use of El Toro runways that require takeoffs towards the mountains. He also objected to the county's proposed two-airport system.

Baker provided written support to testimony given last month by Captain Stanley Sanders of the Allied Pilots Association before the Orange County Board of Supervisors. Sanders criticized the county's runway plans due to safety concerns. In a letter to El Toro Airport Web site Editor Leonard Kranser, Baker concurred with Sanders, stating that while eastern departures from El Toro are theoretically possible under some circumstances, "you can fully expect most pilots to reject the offer of Runway 7," because of wind and "rising terrain in the vicinity of the runway end."

In addition, Baker stated his airline's continued opposition to the county-proposed two-airport system, with John Wayne and El Toro operating simultaneously. He stated emphatically, "There can only be one commercial airport servicing the Orange County market." Baker reinforced the position, taken by other aviation experts, that the building of El Toro will result in the wasteful closing of Orange County's existing John Wayne Airport to commercial airline traffic.

Baker's letter is online at http://www.eltoroairport.org/issues/aa-061499.html. The El Toro Airport Web site, along with airport opponents, asks the county to prove that its plans are safe, feasible and acceptable to the airline industry, or to stop wasting millions of taxpayer dollars trying to shoe horn an airport into El Toro that just won't fly.