Burbank Airport Growth Has Limits : Facility Gets Busier, but There Are Physical, Legal Restrictions

By the year 2000, Burbank Airport will have a modern control tower and terminal offering passengers more comfortable and convenient access to airlines. Almost 8 million passengers will fly to and from the airport each year, a steep increase from the current 2.7 million. An average of 226 planes will arrive and depart each day, up from the current 126.

Or so say some forecasters.

But others say that, despite the steady growth in Burbank Airport’s operations and the recent authorization of an eighth airline to fly out of the facility, those dreams and projections may never come true. They say that its expansion will be limited by legal, physical and governmental restrictions.

Anti-noise groups also are expected to play a vocal and significant role in airport development decisions, further limiting growth.

So many are the barriers to development, airport officials claim, that it is easier to predict what the airport will not become, rather than what it will.

‘Be a Good Neighbor’

“As far as where I would like to see the airport in 20 years, I would like to be able to see it handle the needs of the public but also be a good neighbor,” said Tom Greer, airport manager. “But Burbank will never be a Los Angeles International Airport. The accommodations and types of air service provided by carriers would never be placed on Burbank like LAX.”

Airport officials acknowledge that activity at the airport has been rising steadily, an issue of concern to surrounding communities affected by jet noise. But they say the airport can handle only so much air traffic and that its future is rooted in its limited acreage, proximity to mountains and the perpendicular layout of the two runways.

“Not even a new terminal will increase the flights,” said Robert Garcin, former Glendale mayor who is president of the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority. “Passengers will go to Burbank because of the convenience of the flights, not because it’s a big or new terminal. And having more conveniences is not going to cause . . . some other airline to say that, ‘Well, let’s fly out of Burbank now.’ ”

Greer agreed. “I don’t see the market for an unlimited number of planes in Burbank,” he said. “This will still be just a regional airport serving the corporate industrial base of the San Fernando Valley.”

No Master Plan Adopted

The airport authority has not adopted a master plan for growth, although anti-noise forces assert that it has been keying growth to an unadopted 1981 master plan. That plan envisioned nearly three times the number of passengers as there are today.

Because of this, the homeowners say, the airport authority last month rubber-stamped Trans World Airlines’ application to begin two round trips a day from Burbank to St. Louis on Nov. 15.

The airport has an 11-gate terminal built 50 years ago. The airport authority is negotiating with Lockheed Corp. to acquire land to build a new facility because the Federal Aviation Administration has said the existing building is too close to runways. The new terminal, however, would have the same number of gates.

Greer said that several airlines would be able to share the 11 gates of the new terminal but that a large increase in the number of flights is not expected.

“It’s hard to know the capacity until we know flight schedules and determine how we would juggle what’s happening on the runways,” Greer said.

Airlines Pleased

Executives for most of the airlines serving Burbank Airport, including TWA, with its soon-to-be inaugurated service, said they are pleased with their operations there. Officials from PSA and Continental said they considered Burbank a vital location, but they have no plans to expand their short- and medium-haul operations.

“We feel that this is the perfect regional airport, and we’ve done very well here,” said Bill Hastings, a spokesman for PSA. He said PSA flew more than 1.5 million passengers to and from Burbank Airport last year.

Other major airlines contacted by The Times that do not use the airport indicated that they had no interest in starting operations there. A Delta Air Lines official said he thought the airport “was too small a location” for that line. A Pan American World Airways spokesman said Burbank Airport “does not fit” into its plans.

The 1981 master plan indicates that, although the airport is important “because of its convenient location and its ability to satisfy a significant portion of the air transportation needs of area residents and businesses,” it is unlikely that carriers will want to extensively expand their operations there because existing runways restrict the size of airplanes, limiting the number of passengers and making most longer flights uneconomical.

Shorter Flights

Most flights from Burbank serve cities within 500 miles of Los Angeles, the study says.

Under existing standards, airport officials can do little to refuse admittance to an air carrier that meets the Burbank Airport criterion to use the quietest jets possible. There also is no cap on the number of airplanes that can take off and land at the airport.

Greer said, “As it stands now, if the airlines wanted to increase their flights or if new airlines wanted to come in with quiet planes, legally the airport would have to let them in and say yes to their request.”

Garcin, president of the airport authority, echoed Greer’s statement. “There’s nothing to keep the planes out except the marketplace and competition, as long as they comply with the rules,” he said.

Airport officials also said they cannot deny airlines access because to do so would violate federal deregulation rules by interfering with interstate commerce.

Access Regulations

Airports are legally required to allow fair and reasonable access to airlines wishing to use their facilities and cannot discriminate unreasonably against one airline over another, airport spokesman Victor Gill said.

Recently, Greer said, he has had “discussions and inquiries from three, maybe four different airlines” about establishing ticket-counter space at the airport. One of the airlines, which he declined to identify, submitted an application to the airport staff and filed a bond. The airline later withdrew its proposal, saying flights at Burbank would not necessarily be profitable, Greer said.

The farthest flight offered at Burbank is to Chicago, with other non-stop flights to Dallas, Salt Lake City and Denver, as well as to closer cities such as San Francisco, Sacramento and Phoenix.

Airport officials said TWA had met all of the authority’s criteria for instituting flights in Burbank and could not have been denied access, even if the commissioners had voted against it.

Stage 3 Aircraft

The TWA planes will be federally certified Stage 3 aircraft, the quietest available, and will increase the noise-affected area by only 7.7 acres, to 109.7 acres, airport officials said.

Airport policy requires air carriers applying for admission to Burbank Airport to have Stage 3 aircraft. Added flights cannot increase the noise-affected area beyond the Airport Authority’s 330-acre limit. The noise area is measured by the number of acres of residential and other properties incompatible with excessive aircraft noise.

Other factors may limit growth, officials said.

One is a federally funded noise study that could further restrict the airport’s expansion.

There also are restrictions on physically expanding the airport or its runways. “We only have two runways, which are perpendicular to each other, not four runways which are parallel like at Los Angeles International Airport,” Greer said.

Review of Restrictions

And officials are watching the progress of a proposal by the Air Transport Assn., which has asked the FAA to require that airports submit for review any proposed use restrictions. The requirement could take control of airport use out of the hands of the authority.

The airport’s two runways are too short for larger planes that fly to more distant destinations. Such planes would need a longer runway to gain momentum for takeoffs.

Expanding the runways is prohibited under the joint-powers agreement negotiated when the cities of Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena purchased the airport from Lockheed in 1978.

The airport’s 435 acres cannot now be increased, so more runways cannot be built.

“We have a real ultimate constraint in our runway capacity,” Greer said. “In the end, that is our real limitation.”

Can’t Seize Homes

Most of the airport is surrounded by residential neighborhoods and the authority is not authorized to seize homes by eminent domain.

But concern in the community about expansion remains. Margie Gee, an airport commissioner and the former president of a Burbank anti-noise group, accused the Airport Authority of not planning ahead. It needs a master plan, she said.

Gee said she was particularly concerned about the approval for TWA’s flights, which was given before anti-noise groups learned of TWA’s application.

“The policy of this airport is just being put together in a piecemeal fashion,” Gee said. “The airport officials are just doing projects as they come up, with no planning whatsoever. For a facility of this magnitude not to have an adopted a master plan is outrageous.”

‘Restrictions, Constraints’

“The ‘locking-in’ process which traditionally goes into a master plan is not terribly logical here because we have so many restrictions and constraints,” Garcin said.

However, some people, including Los Angeles City Councilman Howard Finn, who represents the East San Fernando Valley, have asserted that some members of the Airport Authority have been keying growth to the unadopted master plan.

The plan predicted that the airport would serve 3.5 million passengers annually by 1985, 4.7 million by 1990, 5.9 million by 1995 and 7.7 million by the year 2000.

Officials said the airport served 2.7 million last year, and may not reach the 3-million mark this year.

Ellis Ohnstad, airports planning director for the FAA, said airports are not required to have master plans, even though “it’s a procedure which we encourage.” He added: “It’s clear that you can plan for future needs without preparing a master plan.”

Long-Term Study

But Finn said it is “inappropriate” for the authority not to have a master plan.

Planning for the airport will, in some part, depend on the conclusions of a long-term study that will look at ways to reduce the effect of jet noise. The federally funded study will explore proposals to make the airport more compatible with neighboring communities and could lead to significant planning changes, including soundproofing and condemnation of homes and schools near the airport.

In the meantime, operations at the airport have been increasing, officials said. The operating revenue budget for fiscal 1985-86 has been placed at $13.7 million, $2.7 million more than the previous year’s budget.

The airport last year had more than 46,000 planes arriving and departing, with slightly more projected for this year. In 1980 there were about 28,000.

Operations Discontinued

But those numbers don’t tell the whole story, airport officials said. In recent years, two airlines, including one that used noisier jets, and one helicopter service have discontinued operations at the airport. Air carriers also have followed a voluntary 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew on flights.

Airport officials said they have been concentrating more on decreasing the number of noisier airplanes than on decreasing the number of flights. A ban on noisy airplanes by 1987 has been established, and the airport will require air carriers to completely convert their fleets to federally certified Stage 3 aircraft by April, 1987.

Almost 80% of the planes flying into Burbank are the quieter craft, officials said.

Finn, a leading opponent of airport noise and expansion, proposed a moratorium last year on any airport development within Los Angeles city limits. The moratorium could prevent construction of rental-car facilities and parking for the terminal, as well as taxiways to runways.