Panel Urges Rise in Jet Take-Offs to 55 a Day

Over the strong objections of Newport Beach residents, the Orange County Airport Commission on Wednesday voted 3 to 2 to recommend that the number of daily passenger-jet departures at John Wayne Airport--now limited to 41--be increased to 55 flights by March 1.

The panel, which advises the Board of Supervisors, approved by the same margin an increase to 73 daily flights once a new terminal is completed in 1991.

However, attorneys for the county acknowledged that new environmental studies would be required before the airport could ever handle 73 daily departures.

Board to Vote Next Week

The Wednesday night session was the last in a series of public hearings held by several county commissions about airport expansion proposals. All the hearings lead up to next Wednesday’s scheduled vote by the Board of Supervisors, at which the board can accept, reject or modify the plans and policies submitted by the commissions.

In reviewing several other elements of the county’s Airport Master Plan, the panel also recommended construction of the new terminal, which is designed to eventually accommodate 10.24 million passengers per year early in the next century.

The commissioners also recommended that the board and the Federal Aviation Administration conduct joint studies to determine whether another takeoff route could be established to supplement the primary takeoff pattern over Newport Beach. The secondary route would take jets over Tustin and Orange.

New Carriers Recommended

The commissioners also recommended that two new airlines be admitted to the airport when daily flights increase to 55. The new airlines would each be entitled to three departures per day. The other eight additional daily departures would be distributed among the six carriers now serving the airport.

Phoenix-based Air West and Houston-based Continental Airlines occupy the two highest spots on the waiting list of airlines seeking entry and would be the likely recipients of the new flights.

The Board of Supervisors often modifies positions taken by its advisory commissions. Each supervisor may present independent proposals.

For example, this week Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, whose district includes the airport, urged fellow board members to vote for a much smaller, modular terminal that would handle 55 flights per day instead of 73 but that could be expanded easily if needed later on.

He also proposed a review of earlier board studies of possible alternate sites, saying that those studies were based on the proposed construction of a regional international airport. He noted that now, however, several groups are proposing a much smaller facility to merely supplement John Wayne.

The earlier studies led the board to conclude that no appropriate site for a new regional airport exists in Orange County.

Once the board acts, however, it is expected that one or more parties unhappy with the decision will file a lawsuit against the county seeking to block implementation.

That’s what happened in 1981, when the City of Newport Beach, a homeowner group and several airlines obtained court orders prohibiting an increase to 55 flights. The orders were granted on environmental grounds and because the county’s airline access policy was found to discriminate against new carriers.

Same Issues

Now, four years later, the key issues still involve the number of flights, the physical capacity of the airport, environmental effects and the criteria by which the county selects airlines to serve the airport.

Political pressure has been mounting in the interim, with airlines, airplane manufacturers, business owners and homeowners lobbying for everything from closing the airport and finding a new site elsewhere to unlimited expansion of John Wayne.

The dilemma occurs because John Wayne, built to handle 400,000 passengers per year, now handles about 2.5 million passengers annually and still is meeting the needs of only about a third of the county’s market for air passenger service.