San Diego

The Board of Port Commissioners on Tuesday awarded a $528,635 contract for a study about what’s needed to make Lindbergh Field more efficient as congestion and passenger loads continue to grow.

The object of the study, according to the San Diego Unified Port District, is not to deal with potential airport expansion, such as more runways, but to look at ways to accommodate an increasing number of flights in a limited space.

Lindbergh Field encompasses only 500 acres, and the number of passengers using the airport, now estimated at 10 million annually, is expected to grow to 18 million by 1996.

“This has been long overdue,” Commissioner Bill Rick said. “All we’re trying to do is accommodate the press of the crowd . . . while other people decide what to do” about building a new regional airport.

Sid McSwain, a member of the Port District’s Airport Noise Advisory Committee, said he wanted to make sure that whatever happens to Lindbergh over the next several years--initial plans call for moving several operations and construction of parking garages and a new baggage building--it’s clear that the airport “cannot by itself serve the air requirements of this region forever.”

Commissioner Louis Wolfsheimer agreed with that assessment, saying: “No one is saying this should be the permanent site of the airport . . . but unless we do something, we’ll see gridlock at that location.”