Burbank Airport Feud Intensifies With Airline’s Plan to Add Flights

A day after the Los Angeles City Council took action to sue Burbank Airport over jet noise, the airport’s largest carrier announced expansion plans Wednesday that will increase daily jetliner traffic by almost 10%.

Southwest Airlines announced that it will add six round-trip flights to San Jose beginning June 1, in addition to two previously announced daily round-trips to Phoenix and Sacramento starting May 10. In total, the new flights will add 16 takeoffs and landings to the 146 jet airline operations the airport now handles each weekday. Eighty are Southwest flights.

The airport’s continuing growth and the latest schedule expansion has intensified a longtime feud between airport neighbors, who complain that jet noise has become unbearable and must be limited, and airport officials, who argue that the airport is vital to the economy of the region.

The Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority voted March 23 to build a 670,000-square-foot terminal building, about four times the size of the current facility. The authority was under pressure from the Federal Aviation Administration to replace the current terminal because it is closer to the runway than modern safety regulations allow.

In response, the Los Angeles City Council--reacting to noise complaints from constituents who live beneath the airport’s flight patterns in the San Fernando Valley--voted unanimously Tuesday to authorize city attorneys to file a lawsuit against the airport, arguing that an environmental study prepared for the larger terminal is inadequate.

The motion to file a lawsuit was made by Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who represents a large portion of the East Valley where residents have complained for years about noise emanating from jets operating out of the airport. He and others have argued that environmental plans for a new terminal failed to adequately study the noise increase that will come with the growth in passenger volume and flights using the new, larger terminal.

Some airport critics say they would not oppose a new terminal if it were no larger than the current one and was located in the northwest corner of the airport, because they feel that would encourage pilots to take off over Burbank instead of the East Valley.

In a separate motion, L.A. City Council President John Ferraro asked that a team of city officials meet with Airport Authority members to see if a legal fight can be avoided through negotiations.

Airport critics see Southwest’s expansion plans as a further affront to their efforts to restrict the number of flights at the airport.

“This is just another indication that the plan of the Airport Authority is to make this a mini-LAX,” said Richard H. Close, president of Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn. and a leading airport critic. “It also points out the need for the city of Los Angeles’ lawsuit.”

He said further evidence of the airport’s plan to become a large regional airport is the Airport Authority’s decision Monday to spend $165,000 for a billboard and radio ad campaign to draw summer tourists away from LAX.

But Burbank Airport officials defend the decisions to increase flights and to build a new terminal, saying they will create jobs and improve the slumping local economy.

Robert W. Garcin, president of the Airport Authority, said the airport has gone to great lengths to reduce aircraft noise by imposing a 10 p.m.-7 a.m. takeoff curfew and requiring all airlines to use Stage 3 jets, which have advanced engines that are considered the quietest available for commercial use.

But he said a small but vocal group of residents like Close will continue to fight the airport. “These people who complain about noise will continue to complain regardless of the number of flights,” Garcin said.

Garcin called the threatened lawsuit by the city of Los Angeles a “delaying tactic” that will fail and will only cost the region more jobs by delaying the project.

Edward Shelswell, district marketing manager for Southwest, said the expansion will also include five daily round-trip flights between San Jose and Las Vegas. Southwest does not currently serve San Jose.

Shelswell said the expansion had no connection with the airport’s plans for a larger terminal. He said Southwest expanded because it had a market demand and because it had acquired a Boeing 737 jet at a discounted price.

The jet, which seats 137 passengers, is a “Stage 3” jet, he added.

Burbank Airport has 146 daily jet airline takeoffs and landings and 34 daily by commuter aircraft, which primarily are propeller-driven aircraft. These flights are in addition to operations by private and corporate aircraft.

The new Southwest flights will begin Burbank departures at 8:25 a.m, with arrivals as late as 10:15 p.m.

Airport officials credit Southwest for increasing passenger volume over the past two or three years. In March, Southwest reported a record 95,059 passengers boarding in Burbank, a 44% increase over the 66,031 boardings in March, 1992.