Airline Cuts Flights to Meet Ridership Limit

A commuter airline has grounded more than half its Orange County flights after being told that it had violated passenger quotas at John Wayne Airport.

One result of the violation by Wings West, an independent commuter airline that operates American Eagle flights under contract to American Airlines, was a decision by American to sacrifice some of its own flights in an effort to preserve the remaining Wings West feeder service. Airport officials said American is giving up 130 flights between now and March 31. All involve 85-seat BAe-146 jetliners.

“This is the most serious problem we’ve ever encountered under the access rules” said Michael Gatzke, a Carlsbad-based aviation lawyer who represents the county on airport matters.

Orange County allocates annual passenger loads to each airline at John Wayne in order to avoid reaching the 4.75-million annual passenger limit contained in the county’s environmental impact report for the facility. The same limit is contained in a 1985 out-of-court settlement between the City of Newport Beach and the Board of Supervisors in an airport noise lawsuit. The ceiling is in effect pending completion of the new passenger terminal, upon which the limit will rise to 8.4 million passengers annually.

Gatzke said Wings West exceeded its quota of 34,000 passengers annually by Dec. 20, more than three months before the end of the airport’s operations year on March 31. Wings West admitted the quota violation, blaming heavy passenger demand.

Under the county’s airport access rules, Wings West could be barred from John Wayne. But in order to keep Wings West from being forced out of John Wayne Airport altogether, Gatzke said the airport staff is proposing that the cut in service by Wings West and American Airlines, coupled with more stringent reporting requirements, be accepted by the Orange County Airport Commission at its regular meeting Wednesday night. Under the staff’s proposal, Wings West would also forgo any increase in operations until April 1, 1989.

“We needed to send a very clear message that we were not going to tolerate it (the violation),” Gatzke said.

“We are in violation,” Wings West marketing director Joanne Dowti said Monday, “so as of Sunday we reduced the number of flights from Orange County from 10 round trips daily to four round trips. . . . We have discontinued non-stop service from John Wayne to Monterey, and instead we’re routing those passengers through Los Angeles.”

Except for the Monterey flights, all American Eagle service from John Wayne already funnels passengers through Los Angeles International Airport to connecting flights to other destinations.

Al Becker, spokesman for Dallas-based American, said he did not know what BAe flights would be dropped. Most of the airline’s BAe-146’s are used on flights to San Francisco and Sacramento, airport officials said.

Wings West’s Dowti said the violation of John Wayne Airport’s passenger limits occurred because “there was unexpectedly big growth in demand that started around Sept. 10.”

Demand increased when the airline merged its ticketing operations with American’s in the same building at John Wayne, giving commuter flights more visibility, she said. The flights previously were based at the Martin Aviation hangar outside the main terminal building.

Additionally, a temporary cessation of flights by TWA Express, another small airline that feeds the routes of a major carrier, led passengers to seek out American Eagle connections to Los Angeles International Airport, Dowti said.

The Wings West problem was discovered last December when the airport staff examined the daily passenger counts that each air carrier submits to the county, Gatzke said.

Wings West’s 19-passenger Fairchild and 15-passenger Beech twin turboprops are exempted from daily departure limits under the airport’s noise regulations because they are quieter than the county’s noise standards, airport officials said.

Wings West is based in San Luis Obispo.