TAKING OFF : Airport Expansion Is Under Way, but Not Everyone Thinks It’ll Fly

Several dozen yards from where George Rebella stood amid construction equipment and mounds of dirt, a fully loaded Boeing 737 passenger jet taxied to the main runway at John Wayne Airport.

The noise was deafening, but Rebella, the airport’s manager, seemed not to notice. His thoughts were not on the bursting-at-the-seams John Wayne Airport of 1988. They were on the sleek and spacious John Wayne Airport of the 1990s.

“I come out here, and I get really excited,” Rebella said at the new terminal’s construction site, where until last October the old Mission Beechcraft building stood. “This is it. It’s happening.”

Indeed, after years of talk and careful planning, construction is finally under way on the ambitious, $300-million expansion of John Wayne Airport--the largest public works project in Orange County history.

Running Smoothly

This week, crews will begin laying the foundation for the new facility’s centerpiece: a two-level, 338,000-square-foot terminal building. The foundation already has been poured and steel columns are being erected for the terminal’s south parking structure. And county officials expect to award the contract for the north parking structure soon.

With only a few minor problems and generally smooth sailing thus far, officials still are aiming to open the new terminal for business in the spring of 1990--on schedule, near budget and much to the delight of the 14 airlines flying out of John Wayne.

“We really need the new airport,” said Larry Pool, who manages Delta Airlines’ operations at John Wayne. “It will make operations for the airlines easier, and it will make passengers’ lives a lot easier.”

The existing 29,000-square-foot terminal--which will probably be turned over to general aviation once the new facility is finished--was built in 1967 to accommodate 400,000 passengers annually. But in 1970, 871,350 passengers passed through the terminal, and their numbers have continued to soar. Last year, 4.5 million airline passengers used the airport, straining its facilities to their limit.

Under terms of a 1985 federal court settlement, flights of the two noisiest classes of aircraft will be limited to a combined 73 per day--up from the current ceiling of 55 per day. Also under the settlement, the new terminal could be designed to handle no more than 8.4 million passengers per year (well below the annual demand of 11 million passengers forecast by 1990).

Limitations aside, come 1990, air travelers will find a 1,150-foot long terminal that will have 14 aircraft gates. And instead of common waiting areas now used in the existing terminal, each gate will have a separate waiting area. Passengers will no longer have to stride across the tarmac and climb up portable staircases to board their planes. Instead, they will be able to use enclosed ramps to board jetliners, which will park along a 2,062-foot-long apron directly behind the terminal.

Airport users will be able to park in one of three large, low-slung garages--two of which will flank the terminal on either end. Together, the structures will accommodate 8,400 vehicles--almost double the airport’s current capacity of 4,336.

There will also be direct access to the new terminal from the Costa Mesa Freeway, which studies show is used by about 35% of the airport’s passengers. Construction of the necessary freeway ramps is slated to begin this month.

“The project is moving along very, very well,” said Dick Begley, who is managing the effort for HPV, an Irvine-based engineering consortium supervising the expansion.

Still, the airport expansion project hasn’t been without glitches.

Balancing Time, Space

According to Begley and Rebella, a chief frustration has been in balancing time and space conflicts to ensure that crews and projects don’t collide with each other and with daily commercial flight operations.

“Every week there’s a new problem,” Rebella said of the logistical demands. “We’re embarking on a major construction project at a time when we’re running John Wayne Airport at the highest operating level in its history.”

Begley added: “We’re building in four years what we would normally build in 10.”

A more worrisome problem has been with the design of the terminal building. As envisioned in plans by architect Leason Pomeroy and Associates, the plush new terminal is to feature a skylighted interior, landscaping and the prominent use of stone materials. Taylor Woodrow, a Newport Beach construction firm, has been awarded the contract for the new terminal.

But Alan Murphy, who is overseeing the project for the county, said the building as designed will cost $59 million to build--$19 million more than was originally budgeted.

“We came to the conclusion that we could have a very high-quality building without some of the frills (the architects) had put into it,” Murphy said. The county is working with HPV and the architects, he added, to shave $10 million off the cost of the building, largely through cost-saving steps “the public won’t be aware of.”

“We are confident,” said Begley, “we will have the $10 million in savings, even more.” According to Murphy, any overruns in the terminal’s cost will be covered by airport income from previous years and by $38 million in grants from the Federal Aviation Administration--about $17 million more than the FAA originally had pledged to the project. The county also has sold $270 million in bonds to pay for the expansion.

While construction thus far has had minimal impact on the airport’s commercial passengers, there have been some minor adjustments and inconveniences.

Airport Way, the airport access road that runs between the airport and MacArthur Boulevard, has been rerouted slightly to the east. Long-term parking for 2,722 vehicles has been relocated to two lots just north of the San Diego Freeway, with free airport shuttles traveling every 15 minutes between the terminal and the parking lots.

And one airline--America West--now has to tow its Boeing 757 jets between the runway and boarding gates to prevent the aircraft’s powerful engines from blowing construction dirt onto the runway. Dan Richardson, America West’s station chief at the airport, said the towing is little more than a minor disruption, far outweighed by the benefits of what will be roomier facilities.

“It’s long overdue,” Richardson said of the new terminal, echoing many of his counterparts at John Wayne’s other airlines.

Yet from the start, not everyone has supported the airport’s expansion. The county, which runs the airport, and the City of Newport Beach, which had opposed expansion on environmental and noise grounds, were in litigation for years before the 1985 settlement that established the airport’s flight and passenger ceilings.

State Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach), who long opposed expansion and whose constituents include residents adjacent to the airport, is now reconciled to the airport project. She said she realizes that the existing facilities are “woefully inadequate,” but added:

“I think there are still real (environmental) concerns. . . . If (expansion) derails the effort to look for another terminal, it will not work in the long-range needs of the area.”

Expansion at John Wayne Airport also has rankled general aviation pilots.

Last fall, about half the airport’s general-aviation users--those whose planes sat on the site of the planned terminal--were relocated to the far west side of the airport in order to make room for construction. There the pilots were farther away from the general-aviation runway, and their aircraft tie-down spaces were smaller, according to Scott Raphael, an attorney and spokesman for the Orange County Airport Assn., which represents pilots of small planes.

General aviation pilots, whose flights accounted for more than 90% of the airport’s 540,000 operations last year, felt they were being treated unfairly by being forced to accommodate the expansion needs of the airport’s commercial community, Raphael said.

After tempers neared the breaking point, general-aviation users and airport officials sat down and began discussing ways to address the community’s concerns. Raphael said steps have now been taken to alleviate those concerns, including allowing the pilots increased access to electrical and maintenance facilities. Airport officials also decided to phase in a 100% hike in space rental fees, instead of imposing the increase all at once.

“We’ve been impressed by the gestures made by (airport) management to work together to solve these problems,” Raphael said. “I really believe the airport staff is committed to servicing all segments of aviation.”

Airport manager Rebella agreed that the general aviation community’s concerns were legitimate. But he also said the airport could no longer afford to ignore its unyielding growth demands.

“True, we’ve got 400 (general-aviation) tenants, but we’ve also got 4.5 million commercial passengers. They are also our customers,” he said as a jet full of travelers taxied by, “and we have to please them too.”

EXPANSION IMPACT

1988-89 1990-91 Airport employees 57 90 (approx.) Salaries and benefits of $2.3 million $3.2 million airport employees (FY 1988-89) (FY 1990-91) Annual payroll for all $279 million $456 million airport-related * jobs in Orange County Number of airport-related 14,000 23,000 jobs in Orange County (approx.) John Wayne Airport’s $1 billion $1.7 billion total budget State & local ** tax $116 million $191 million revenues generated from airport

*Airport-related jobs include direct employees of the airport itself, airlines, car-rental agencies, restaurants, hotels and other businesses.

** Orange County revenues in unincorporated areas

Source: “Analysis of Current & Projected Impact of John Wayne Airport,” prepared in 1987 by Economic Research Associates in Los Angeles

KEY DATES IN EXPANSION PROGRAM

Feb. 2, 1987--Expansion project’s groundbreaking

Oct. 1987--General aviation aircraft and facilities moved to west side of airport

Oct. 1987--Demolition of Mission Beechcraft & several air cargo buildings

Feb. 1988--Long-term parking lot closed; Main Street annex north of San Diego Freeway opened March 1988--Construction started on south parking structure

Aug. 1988--Construction of new terminal begins

Aug. 1988--Construction of Costa Mesa Freeway direct-access ramps to begin

Nov. 1988--Campus Drive widening to begin

May 1989--South parking structure to open

Oct. 1989--Direct-access freeway ramps to open

Nov. 1989--Opening of east parking structure

Dec. 1989--Campus Drive widening complete

April 1, 1990--New terminal to open

Oct. 1990--General aviation service center to open

July 1991--Completion of north parking structure

AIRLINES SERVING JOHN WAYNE

1952--When commercial service first began: Bonanza (forerunner of Hughes AirWest).

1967--When current terminal first opened: Bonanza and Air California.

1977--Ten years later: Airwest, Air California and Golden West.

1988--Those three are all gone. Now there are 14: Alaska, American, America West, Continental, Delta, Northwest, TWA, United, US Air, American Eagle, Resort, Skywest, Stateswest and United Express.

1990--Two more major carriers will be added, for a total of 16 airlines.

PASSENGER GROWTH

Year Passenger Volume 1970 871,350 1976 1,825,423 1977 2,158,505 1978 2,380,519 1979 2,556,139 1980 2,379,494 1981 2,379,792 1982 2,530,850 1983 2,793,640 1984 2,827,140 1985 3,283,975 1986 4,058,878 1987 4,554,794 1988 number expected to top 5 million 1990 (est.) 8.4 million

Source: John Wayne Airport, public information department