NEWPORT BEACH : City OKs Cargo Flights, Gets Runway Pact

The city tentatively has agreed to amend its settlement with the county over noise from John Wayne Airport to allow 10 cargo flight departures a week.

The County Board of Supervisors is expected to give final approval Tuesday to a plan that will allow United Parcel Service and Federal Express to operate all-cargo jetliners at John Wayne Airport, possibly as soon as the end of the week.

The amended settlement would allow each freight line to send one flight a day out of the airport on weekdays through the 1997 access plan year.

In exchange, Newport Beach City Atty. Robert Burnham said, the county will not extend any runways at the airport during those two years.

The 9-year-old settlement agreement, reached in a federal lawsuit, and the county’s Phase 2 Access Plan had limited departing flights by noise-regulated aircraft to 73 per day.

The amended settlement terms the two daily cargo flights as “interim.”

Newport Beach has steadfastly opposed cargo operations at John Wayne Airport, contending the county’s Environmental Management Agency did not adequately consider the use of El Toro Marine Corps Air Station as a commercial airport.

The settlement deal does not rule out that possibility.

The City Council’s decision assumes “the willingness of UPS and Federal Express to consider cargo operations at El Toro upon the elimination of any political or legal obstacle to joint use,” Burnham said.

The city’s agreement to the deal is contingent on confirmation from the Federal Aviation Administration that the changes do not violate a 1990 federal law governing plane noise and capacity.