El Segundo Opposes Push to Extend Airport Lease

Los Angeles International Airport officials said Thursday that a controversial proposal to extend the lease of a luxury airline based at the airport’s Imperial Terminal will probably not be decided until early next year.

The proposal has rekindled an old dispute between the city of El Segundo and airport officials. El Segundo, which lies directly across Imperial Highway from the satellite terminal, has long advocated that the terminal be closed because of noise and possible hazards to homes. The city has been joined in its opposition by Los Angeles City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, who represents the airport area.

“The terminal should have been closed long ago,” said El Segundo Mayor Carl Jacobson last week. “Every day it is open, it is more of a problem to our residents.”

The renewed opposition erupted at a Nov. 29 commission meeting, where Jacobson opposed the lease to MGM Grand Air until a plan is adopted to phase out Imperial Terminal and provide for a noise buffer on the south side of the airport.

The present proposal before the Board of Airport Commissioners, which is expected to be voted on in January or February, would extend the temporary lease held by MGM until 2007.

Galanter, in a statement read by a staff aide, called for disapproval of the lease. She questioned the “entire process” that brought MGM Grand to the airport, which is operating beyond the capacity provided in its existing General Plan, and a new plan has not been prepared. Galanter also said the airport “has made promises” to close Imperial Terminal, something the Department of Airports denies.

MGM Grand carries passengers between Los Angeles and New York for $975 one way. The luxury service, which includes several entrees prepared in flight, expansive seating and some private compartments, has been operating since 1987 on a temporary lease. The planes, converted Boeing 727s, carry up to 34 passengers and have been averaging 27 per flight for the past nine months, according to airline President Chuck Demoney. He said the company flies two daily round-trips between Los Angeles and New York.

“In our opinion, they’ve been a good neighbor and have posed no problem,” said Miller. He said the airline operates under 10 restrictions to limit noise, including a requirement that craft be towed to and from runways. Ground equipment has been muffled, he said, and MGM Grand spent $1 million to fix up the run-down terminal building.

El Segundo and Galanter said at the commission meeting that the new lease drops some of those conditions, which Miller called an oversight that is being corrected.

Demoney said the airline is prohibited from operating between midnight and 6:30 a.m. and uses runways farthest away from El Segundo 70% of the time. He also said the company hopes to resolve another criticism against it--noisy aircraft--by converting to quieter jets by the middle of next year.

Both Miller and Demoney said a long-term lease was anticipated under terms of the temporary pact.

El Segundo officials have said that, under the airport’s 1971 General Plan, which is now being updated, a buffer should have been created between the airport and the city that would have ended use of the Imperial Terminal. Lynn Harris, city development services director, said El Segundo has documents showing that the airport intended to close the terminal after the airport expansion carried out in connection with the 1984 Olympics.

Miller, however, said the airport never gave such an assurance. “What we have said is that, as long as we feel there is a need for a terminal there, it would continue as a terminal. If at some future date it is not needed, we would close it,” he said.

Harris said that, by giving operators such as MGM Grand temporary permits while operating beyond its planned capacity of 40 million passengers a year, “the airport is growing without any control, without any environmental mitigation measures.”

Miller agreed that the 1971 airport plan calls for a south buffer and that the airport is operating beyond capacity. However, he said the plan also indicates that “aviation uses will remain as long as necessary.

“There is no code requirement” that LAX stop expanding while a plan update to incorporate mitigating measures is under way, Miller said. “We have the need to accommodate air traffic and commerce and will continue to do that,” he said.