Burbank Airport Officials Vote to Seek Mandatory Flight Curfew

In a significant victory for residents angered by aircraft noise, Burbank Airport commissioners voted 6 to 2 Thursday to seek federal approval for a mandatory curfew on all flights from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.

The action enables the board, which oversees the airport’s operations, to seek assurances from the Federal Aviation Administration that it will back the curfew and enforce it against airlines that violate it.

The FAA has approved no curfew anywhere in the nation since new rules were instituted in 1990.

The vote sent the issue to the board’s legal committee, which was given two months to find lawyers who could fight for a tougher curfew on commercial airlines than the voluntary one currently in place.

“It is the first major conciliatory, good-faith effort put forward by the Airport Authority since it came into being,” said Commissioner Margie A. Gee of Burbank, who was recently named to the board and lives under the airport’s flight path.

Along with airport Commissioners Philip E. Berlin of Burbank and William Paparian of Pasadena, Gee has been a strong advocate of the mandatory curfew, saying it would resolve many complaints voiced by residents who live under the airport’s flight path.

The Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority, which oversees the airport’s operations, has set a voluntary curfew on commercial flights leaving Burbank between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. and a mandatory curfew during the same hours on freight carriers, along with commercial jets and general aviation planes rated as having noisy engines.

Under the voluntary curfew, airlines are advised by airport officials to avoid takeoffs in that period, but three airlines continue to fly without penalty.

They operate six commercial flights that leave Burbank Airport between 6 and 7 a.m. on weekdays. Another seven land between 10 p.m. and 12:15 a.m. Landings are not covered under the voluntary curfew.

The airport has about 180 landings and takeoffs daily.

“If you were a carrier that decided--on the next schedule change--you wanted to operate an aircraft before 7 a.m., you submit your schedule to the Airport Authority. There’s really no enforcement, and that’s basically it,” said John Thomas, a station manager for Southwest Airlines, which has regular flights to Oakland and Las Vegas leaving Burbank at 6:10 and 6:55 a.m.

Southwest Airlines, he added, started the early flight to Oakland last year to compete with a competitor’s flight out of Burbank at 6:30 a.m. and soon found strong customer demand.

“Most business people like to start the day before 8 a.m.,” Thomas said, “and if you can get them to Oakland to catch a cab . . . it gives you an advantage over another airline that can’t do that.”