USAir Pullout Clouds Plan for New Terminal : Burbank Airport: The departure of the biggest carrier trims the revenue needed to buy 250 acres from Lockheed Corp. for the proposed building.

The pullout of USAir from Burbank Airport has placed a cloud over plans to purchase land for a much-debated new terminal at the facility, officials said Tuesday.

“It’s essential that we replace USAir or we won’t be able to go forward with the land purchase,” said Robert Garcin, president of the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority, which owns the Burbank facility.

“Without passenger revenue, we will not have the money” to buy the 250 acres that Lockheed Corp. is selling in the airport’s northeast sector, Garcin said.

USAir, which said it will depart May 2, is the airport’s biggest carrier, accounting for one-third of the facility’s 3.5 million passengers a year, airport spokesman Victor J. Gill said.

The carrier, which accounts for 22 of the airport’s 78 daily flights, paid $1.1 million in landing fees and rent to the authority in 1990, Gill said.

Remaining airlines are Southwest, American, United and Alaska.

The authority has been ordered by the Federal Aviation Administration to build a new terminal because the present building, built in 1930, is too close to the runways for modern safety standards.

Officials say a new terminal, including the land, could cost $200 million to $250 million.

A consultant recently told the authority that passenger traffic could grow to 14 million a year by 2025.

Airport noise critics are demanding that any new terminal be no larger than the current building; they accuse the authority of pushing for a massive terminal without regard to the increased noise that new flights would generate.

Gill said that by late Tuesday no airline had approached the authority about leasing the five gates that USAir is vacating.

“I’d be surprised if an airline came running in with its tongue hanging out and acting anxious for that space,” said Garcin, adding that airlines, “like all businesses, don’t want to appear too eager or they will weaken their bargaining position.”

USAir canceled flights at six California airports in an effort to stem losses that resulted from higher fuel costs and increased competition from discount fares.