New Airport ‘Final Solution,’ FAA Chief Says

The head of the Federal Aviation Administration believes the “ultimate solution” to crowding at Lindbergh Field is to build a new airport.

In a Jan. 23 letter to a local official, FAA Administrator T. Allen McArtor clarified the agency’s recent recommendations on improving the efficiency of Lindbergh Field. The suggestions, McArtor wrote, should not be “misconstrued” to mean that the FAA favors holding onto the bay-front airport indefinitely.

“We believe the ultimate solution to fulfilling the aviation demands for the San Diego metropolitan area lies in the construction of a new airport,” McArtor wrote. “In this regard, we have funded, and fully support, the effort that the San Diego Assn. of Governments (Sandag) has under way to identify a site for such a facility.”

Written Position

McArtor’s statement is significant because it is the first time the highest-ranking FAA official has endorsed, in writing, the idea of a new airport for San Diego, said Jack Koerper, Sandag’s special projects director who is in charge of the airport relocation study.

“It’s the first time we’ve heard from the administrator,” Koerper said. “His staff in Los Angeles has thought as much privately, but it is the first time we have it on his letterhead, with his signature.”

San Diego City Councilman Ron Roberts, who released the letter Monday, said McArtor’s statement was politically more “significant than the city councilman for the district or a local newspaper saying there should be a new airport.”

FAA officials “are the ones looking at the service levels, they are the ones we are relying on for making the predictions on the adequacy or inadequacy of the airport,” said Roberts, whose district includes Lindbergh.

An FAA efficiency study, released Dec. 13, recommended expanding Lindbergh so that it can accommodate more than one large jumbo jet at a time on its primary runway and taxiways. The report, which never addressed the idea of relocating Lindbergh, suggested buying up land--including some from the adjacent Marine Corps Recruit Depot--to build a new passenger terminal, a bigger apron and longer taxiways.

Roberts criticized the FAA report when it was released for lacking “understanding of the real options in San Diego.” The councilman said he told McArtor during a visit to Washington in early January that the report’s failure to mention the need for a new airport site left many with the impression that the FAA endorsed the use of Lindbergh for the foreseeable future.

That complaint, Roberts said Monday, led to McArtor’s written clarification in support of a new airport site, which was addressed to Sandag Executive Director Kenneth Sulzer. The FAA last year granted Sandag $350,000 to conduct the search for a new airport site.

So far, the search has been narrowed to three options recommended last week by Sandag’s airport consultant, KPMB Peat Marwick of San Francisco. Those sites include taking over Miramar Naval Air Station for civilian use, building a new airport by grading undeveloped canyons about 2 miles east of Miramar or building a joint, international airfield with Mexico, stretching from Otay Mesa into Tijuana.

Roberts, who has spearheaded the latest push for airport relocation, said he favors the international effort with Mexico. He said he will be among a group of San Diego officials that will travel to Mexico City on Feb. 18 to explore the idea with Mexican administrators.

A final decision on a new airport site is not due from Sandag until June.