Burbank Airport Authority President Defends New Terminal

Question: Why does the airport need a new terminal?

Answer: It needs a new terminal because the present terminal is in the wrong location. When it was built, it was within whatever guidelines (that) then existed under FAA regulations. It no longer matches the current guidelines of the FAA. There is a necessary 750 feet clearance zone between the center line of the runway and structures. Our building, as well as our parking structure, are within that 750 feet separation line. So, it’s out of place. It belongs elsewhere.

Q. Why does it have to be bigger?

A. It has to be bigger because what is there now is 60 years old and we have progressed over 60 years in building terminals that accommodate the public in a much better way.

The purpose is to simply accommodate, by today’s standards, what we think the public will demand.

Q. Many critics, including Los Angeles city and Los Angeles Unified School District officials, have criticized the authority for not addressing noise as part of the environmental impact report for the new terminal. What is your response?

A. That criticism is unfounded both in law and in practice. In law it’s not necessary because the project is not noise-inducing. The project is a structure called a terminal building. It does not make noise. It is not noise-inducing. It is not the “Field of Dreams” argument: If we build the terminal, the people will come. The people are going to come whether the terminal is built or not.

Secondly, it’s not practical because we’ve done ample noise studies over the years. Another one isn’t going to accomplish anything. We know what the noise patterns are at the Burbank Airport.

Q. Yet in the EIR for this terminal, traffic impacts were considered. Why look at traffic impacts and not noise impacts?

A. Our consultants, the Peat Marwick people, felt there was a change in the pattern of usage at the airport because of the location of the new terminal closer to San Fernando Road. They felt that in connection with the project that it was proper to study surface transportation.

Q. The airport has for years been criticized by neighbors who say aircraft noise has reduced their property value. Is the airport to blame?

A. To blame for what? The reduced values? Number one, I don’t know that the values are reduced. I’ve had no empirical evidence that tells me the airport has reduced land value. So there is nothing to be blamed for.

I don’t see a mass exodus of people around the airport and property going for a nickel on the dollar. None of that has ever taken place in the 15 years I have been with the airport, although I hear it quite constantly.

Q. The lion’s share of the airport’s takeoffs are south over the city of Los Angeles and not over the three cities that own the airport--Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena. Critics have offered a plan to share the noise by making more takeoffs to the east. Why not institute such a plan?

A. The three cities would receive more noise if there was an easterly departure or a southerly departure with a turn to the east. I have asked the FAA to permit a departure to the south with an easterly turn and the FAA and the Air Transport Assn., a trade group of airlines, have said no. They won’t permit it. They have their own reasons.

A departure to the east, as we’ve said a thousand times over, is a decision for the pilot to make. This airport authority has never denied, directed, stopped, halted or taken any role at all in preventing easterly departures from the Burbank Airport. That is a matter for the pilot to decide. I don’t think pilots like to do that because the easterly runway is shorter, it’s not into the prevailing winds and the mountains are right ahead of them to the east. So there are good technical reasons why a pilot would make a decision to go to the south.

Q. Some critics say the three cities that own the airport make all the money but Los Angeles city suffers all the negative side effects. Is that true?

A. Totally false. Absolutely false. Number one, neither Burbank, Glendale or Pasadena receive five cents from the airport. The airport runs on, in effect, a break-even basis. All the money that is generated on the airport stays on the airport. That is federal law.

Los Angeles benefits more in dollars worth and value than the three cities combined because the job market is in the San Fernando Valley. The jobs that are provided for the most part come from the San Fernando Valley.

And add this: When the airport was acquired 15 years ago, the city of Los Angeles was asked to become a full partner in owning that airport. They declined. The only one time that they even indicated that they might be willing was when they said: “And by the way, we want a veto power over everything that is done.” No way.

So, they don’t want to play fair, but they want to criticize unfairly.

Q. How much has the airport done to reduce noise impacts on neighboring communities?

A. In all fairness, the rule we have that there only be the quiet Stage Three aircraft only works because we have Stage Three craft out there. So the technology that has been developed is what has reduced the noise.

When we acquired the airport in 1978, there were over 400 acres of incompatible land, meaning land that wasn’t suitable to fly over. This included schools, residential areas, hospitals, things of that sort. Those 400 acres were within the 70-decibel range of the airport. Today there are fewer than 20 of those same acres. To me that demonstrates there’s been a substantial noise reduction.

Q. Some neighbors have charged that the authority is trying to turn the airport into a mini LAX. Is that so?

A. No, that is inaccurate and misleading. To start with, LAX is an international airport. We in Burbank, in my opinion, will never have an international operation. We will have an airport that does a good deal more business than it’s doing today only because of the population trends, only because the demand of the traveler and only because of the service provided by the airlines. But to call it a “mini LAX” is, I think, misleading because we’ll never even come close to the volume of business to qualify it as a “mini LAX.”