Quieter Skies, Emptier Airport : Flights--and Jet Noise--Drop as Major Airlines Pull Out

Four major airlines have pulled out of Long Beach Airport in the past two years, delighting noise-weary residents but jolting area businesses.

Now United Airlines has announced that it also will cancel service at Long Beach in May, leaving the airport with an average of 21 round-trip flights a day, down from a peak of 41 last year.

One by one, Continental, Delta, TWA and USAir have pulled out of Long Beach since 1990, citing a softening economy and a declining number of passengers.

Local business people point to empty hotel rooms, declining car rentals and large parcels of undeveloped land near the airport.

Crews for four airlines used to fill 25 rooms a night at the Holiday Inn on Lakewood Boulevard. Now, an employee said, those 25 rooms are empty.

“We seem to be losing a lot of individual business travelers,” said Chris Davis, president of the Long Beach Convention and Visitors Council. “If they’ve got a meeting up here, they tend to fly into Orange County and stay at a hotel in Orange County.”

Infrequent flights do not accommodate the business traveler, he said. But they please the homeowner.

“It’s a lot more pleasant,” said Mike Donelon, whose house in the California Heights neighborhood used to hum twice as often with the sound of jets taking off.

Long Beach began to develop the airport in 1923, 20 years before major housing developments were built in the area. Now hemmed in by neighborhoods, the airport has been entangled since 1983 in a legal battle with the city over flight limitations.

The city maintains that it is necessary to limit flights to reduce noise. In 1988, a District Court judge ruled that the flight limit was unconstitutional and later set a temporary cap at 41 flights to give the city time to draft a new ordinance. The city has appealed the ruling.

Airport officials, who are city employees, say the five airlines pulled out of Long Beach because of the nationwide recession.

But some airline industry executives say the city’s efforts to cut the number of flights prevented them from building a loyal clientele that would have helped them ride out tough economic times. Expansion at Orange County’s John Wayne Airport has also wooed away customers, they said. Ninety planes leave John Wayne daily, more than four times the number in Long Beach.

Long Beach officials “have always been unreasonable about it and have always attempted to make it a hostile environment,” said John Lyons, an attorney representing the airlines. “It’s certainly one of the most restrictive airports in the country.”

Flight limitations cost the city more than $200 million a year in lost revenues, Lyons said, adding that the airport could easily handle 60 flights a day.

“Long Beach contends, and has for a long period of time, that somehow restricting the number of flights relates to the noise problem,” Lyons said. “The reality is the noisiest that airport ever was was the late ‘70s when they were flying with extremely noisy jets. . . . It’s now a much quieter place.”

Airport officials agree that the use of quieter aircraft has reduced the noise in surrounding neighborhoods but they say the airport is required to strike a balance between the needs of airlines and the concerns of residents.

“It’s been a very volatile situation in this community,” said Lonnie Mitchell, airport spokeswoman and noise abatement officer. “We are really between a rock and a hard place.”

Donelon, president of the California Heights Neighborhood Assn., said he and his neighbors would prefer even fewer airlines at Long Beach.

“We would like to have zero flights,” he said. “The recession has helped us, but the recession’s not going to last forever.”

The association also wants to limit the Sunday and holiday flights of private pilots who practice at the airport. The airport handles about 700 such flights a day, ranking it in the top 10 in the country for general aviation use.

The airport receives complaints from residents annoyed by the buzzing of smaller aircraft, but the lawsuit concerned only commercial jets, Mitchell said. “Clearly, the majority of your smaller aircraft are not as noisy.”

Homeowners have been more vocal in lobbying the city than area business owners, in part because the businesses still receive business from Los Angeles and Orange County airports, Davis said. And the city is governed by councilmen who vote to please their constituents, he said.

“I think our airport historically has been underutilized, and that’s how the city would like to maintain it,” Davis said. “I can see there are certain concerns about noise, pollution and the like, and yet other communities have managed to impose noise restrictions that have worked. . . . Hopefully, we can work something out.”

For example, Burbank Airport, which operates with only two runways compared to Long Beach’s five, offers an average of 77 commercial flights a day. Although San Fernando Valley residents have also complained about noise, the airport chose to phase out noisier aircraft rather than limit flights, said airport spokesman Viktor Gill.

“They haven’t sued us,” Gill said. “They’ve cooperated with us.”

Long Beach has also phased out noisier aircraft and monitors aircraft decibel levels with the latest technology, Mitchell said. Louder flights are forbidden between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. The airport also sponsors discussions between pilots and homeowners.

The City Council has no intention of drafting an ordinance to lift flight restrictions, said Councilman Les Robbins, whose district includes the airport’s 1,166 acres.

“I think when the economy turns around, the airlines will come back,” Robbins said.

Each time an airline discontinues a flight, the airport loses about $228,000, Mitchell said. That figure includes the landing and rental fees paid by the airlines and money spent by passengers in the airport’s parking lot and restaurant. “It does mean a decrease in revenue,” she said.

Commercial carriers accounted for about 67% of the airport’s $13.8-million budget for fiscal 1991-92. Officials anticipate only $12.1 million in revenues for 1992-93, she said.

To ease economic pressure on the remaining airlines--Alaska, American and America West--the airport will not raise fees next year, but the carriers still have to contend with pressure from area residents.

“We don’t want to shut the airport down entirely,” said Gene Tenhoff, a homeowner and member of the airport’s Aviation Noise Abatement Committee. “We’d like to achieve a nice balance so we can receive a respite of noise on Sunday so we can barbecue and enjoy our back yards.”

Long Beach Airport

A record of daily flight activity by commercial airlines serving Long Beach Airport. The figures are from May of each year.

Airline 1989 1990 1991 *1992 Alaska 11 12 12 7 American 6 7 5 5 America West 4 5 14 5 Continental 2 2 0 0 Delta 4 4 0 0 Federal Express 1 2 3 3 TWA 2 2 0 0 United 5 6 6 0 UPS 0 1 1 1 USAir 5 0 0 0 Totals 40 41 41 21

* Projected figures for May, 1992

Source: Long Beach Airport