Plane Commuters Take High Road, Avoid Traffic Snarls

It is 6:40 a.m. and not yet light as three cars converge on a parking lot at the end of Orange County’s John Wayne Airport.

Three men and a woman step out and walk together to a single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza tethered on the Tarmac. On board, one man dons a pilot’s headset, makes sure that the others are buckled in and starts the engine. Within minutes the plane is aloft.

By 7 a.m., on a day when traffic on the northbound San Diego Freeway was badly slowed by an injury accident, the pilot reaches his destination: the municipal airport in Hawthorne, 45 miles away. The four disembark and walk across a street to their offices at Northrop Corp.’s sprawling headquarters.

Welcome to plane commuting, one alternative to Southern California’s traffic snarls.

“It’s the only way to go,” said Rosemary Hussey, 57, a 20-year plane commuter, as she boarded her flight out of John Wayne Airport on a recent morning.

“When I walk into work, I am refreshed from not having to sit on the freeway,” said her plane-pooling companion Paul Hobbs, 35. “My perspective on the whole day is different.”

Every morning at airports throughout the Southland, people such as Hussey and Hobbs use private planes to commute to work. In pools or by themselves, they fly from as far away as San Diego, Santa Barbara and Bishop to Los Angeles, Burbank and Ontario. A new residential development in Rancho California near Temecula even has an airstrip behind the homeowners’ back yards to expedite their aerial commuting.

There are no figures kept on how many plane commuters there are, but interviews with commuters, pilots and airport officials shed some light on the subject.

For example:

- At Van Nuys Airport, the world’s busiest general aviation airport, as many as 100 commuters take to the skies each morning, estimated Steve Ortega, line service manager for Execuflite at the airport.

- Ten to 15 commuters fly into and out of Burbank Airport each morning, many of them going to work at the adjacent Lockheed Corp. plant, said Barry Silva, line service manager for Burbank’s Martin Aviation.

- Hawthorne Municipal Airport, located near several large aerospace employers such as Northrop, experiences a daily influx of at least a dozen planeloads of commuters.

Lawrence James said he has seen a steady increase in the 20 years he has been commuting from his home in Riverside to his job as an elementary principal at the 59th Street School in Los Angeles. James, 65, flies his single-engine Cessna Cardinal into Hawthorne Airport every weekday morning. It takes him 40 minutes to cover the distance that it would normally take 2 1/2 hours to drive.

Numbers Growing

“When I first started, there were only a half dozen (plane commuters at Hawthorne). Now, there are more than I can count,” James said as he arrived at the airfield the other day.

Many plane commuters are pilots with military training. Others got their pilot’s license just so they could fly to work.

Among them is Walter Graham, 49, who owns a manufacturing business in Santa Ana and lives with his wife and five children on a nine-acre estate near Rancho California in the Temecula Valley. Graham said he took up flying after moving there nine years ago and finding that it took two hours to drive back to Santa Ana.

“I began that commute by car and quickly decided that wasn’t for me,” Graham said.

Graham now departs Rancho California at 8 a.m., arrives at John Wayne Airport at 8:20 and is sitting behind the desk in his office in Santa Ana by 8:40.

Living in ‘God’s Country’

A dozen or so people live in Big Bear Valley and fly to work. These commuters, who include a dentist, a data services specialist and an entrepreneur, awaken to the smell of pine trees and, on some frosty mornings, the sight of fresh snow.

“They want to live up here in God’s country,” said a spokeswoman at Big Bear City Airport.

Despite its benefits, plane commuting is not for everyone.

Accessibility to airports is one determining factor. Most plane commuters interviewed said that both their homes and their workplaces must be located near airports in order to make the flying worthwhile. Even then, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a place to keep a plane. At John Wayne Airport, for instance, there is a 10-year waiting list for tie-down spaces.

Cost can be prohibitive. Airplane fuel is $1.50 a gallon. Tie-down fees range from $50 to $100 a month. An annual Federal Aviation Administration inspection can run another $500. A commuter plane costs at least $20,000. Insurance can run $1,000 a year.

Cost About $200 a Month

The typical cost for plane commuting is $200 a month.

Added to all of this is the cost of leaving a second car at one’s destination airport, as many plane commuters must do.

Inclement weather is another hindrance to plane pooling. Although many plane-commuting pilots are rated to fly through cloud banks under instrument flight rules, they said there are perhaps a dozen times out of the year when stormy weather keeps them grounded. On those days, they are forced to drive.

Then, there are safety concerns. Commuters said the fear of accidents keeps some plane commuters--and their spouses--jittery.

“My wife keeps her fingers crossed and calls me every day to make sure I made it,” said Northrop’s Hobbs, who has been commuting to work by plane for four months.

Worry About Crowding

There is worry that the skies already are too crowded and that an influx of more commuter planes will decrease the margin of safety.

“It’s just like with cars, the more cars the more percentage you have for accidents. The more planes, the more chance for accidents,” said Silva of Martin Aviation.

Still, current plane-poolers said they have no intention of rejoining the multitudes on the freeways.

“I plan to continue doing it,” said Graham of Rancho California, “until there is a road with no people on it.”