John Wayne: Airport Lead to Bit Player
Its marble floors, arching ceilings and polished brass fixtures give John Wayne Airport a jet-age atmosphere and a roominess that Orange County officials hoped would serve increasing numbers of travelers for decades.
The $310-million remake nine years ago--and continuing work since--transformed what had been a dilapidated terminal into a modern airport and a destination point for travelers nationwide.
But this week’s decision by county supervisors to build a bigger El Toro airport then previously planned relegated John Wayne’s future to a diminished role serving half the passengers originally envisioned on short-haul flights throughout the West.
The fallout from the board’s decision, though, involves much more than the existing airport.
There are hotels, restaurants and other businesses nearby that depend on airport traffic for much of their livelihood. There are three surrounding cities that count on the sales and hotel taxes from visitors for their budgets.
With a drop in passengers at John Wayne Airport, all can be expected to take some hit. Yet Newport Beach, which has opposed expansion of the airport, hasn’t studied the economic impact of a passenger decline at John Wayne, said Peggy Ducey, the assistant city manager.
But some are concerned.
Supervisor Thomas W. Wilson, whose district includes Newport Beach and cities near El Toro, said economic viability around John Wayne Airport is vulnerable to the proposed airport at El Toro, which is earmarked to serve 28.8 million passengers a year by 2020.
Businesses eyeing a move to Newport Beach, he said, might reconsider, knowing that airline flights will move south.
“I think [JWA] is still going to be at around 8.5 million passengers for the next 10 years, but at some point, it’s going to become a different airport,” Wilson said.
The county issued bonds to remake John Wayne and allow it to serve as many as 10 million passengers a year. The Thomas F. Riley Terminal opened in September 1990, and the county continued to work on other improvements, mainly for roads and parking.
The county still owes about $200 million in bonds, which should be paid off by 2018. The money is supposed to come from airport operations, said Kathleen Campini Chambers, an airport spokeswoman.
In case future revenue drops so low that the airport can’t cover its debt, the county already has pledged that money from any other county-run airport would be used, Chambers said.
She defended the expansion and continued improvements, even though the plan for El Toro cuts into John Wayne’s business. The existing airport simply needed the make-over, she said. The year before the Riley terminal opened, the airport served 4.5 million passengers in a 23-year-old terminal built to accommodate 400,000.
In a statement, interim John Wayne Airport director Loan Leblow said she was not concerned about any potential financial impact from the decision to scale back the expected future use of the airport.
“We will be part of an airport system like many other airports in this country,” she said.
Known as a “boutique” airport because of its size, John Wayne handled about 7 million passengers last year. It can accommodate as many as 8.4 million passengers through a court-approved agreement that expires in 2005. After that, its growth is constrained only by size--it sits on 500 acres--and short runways that make it unsuitable for larger planes used for long-distance flights.
Some Analysts Still Bullish on Prospects
Several airline analysts remained bullish on the prospects for John Wayne Airport, even with the push for an international airport to replace the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. The Marines are scheduled to leave the base in July. County planners expect to open the new airport in 2005 to nearly 9 million passengers a year initially.
While major airlines with long-haul flights such as American, Delta and Continental probably will abandon John Wayne for El Toro, there always will be a market for commercial flights at the existing airport, they said.
The area around John Wayne and the Irvine Spectrum business commercial center will remain the county’s financial center, said Donald Wise, president of Wise Hotel Investments Inc. in Corona del Mar.
By 2020, he said, an additional 15 million square feet of high-end office space will be built in the area, making it even more vital. He sees businesspeople flying to El Toro, then traveling to the lodgings and companies based near John Wayne and the Spectrum.
“The new airport is not close to anything,” Wise said. “For the business traveler, John Wayne Airport is still going to be the place to be. It’s not going to turn into Oklahoma all of a sudden. There’s too much going on there.”
John Pincavage, an airline industry analyst at SBC Warburg Dillon Read Inc., said a second Orange County airport could mean any number of scenarios for flights. He doubted airlines would run operations at both airports because it is more economical to offer as many flights as possible from one location.
If larger airlines move to El Toro to take advantage of the longer runways and a greater number of flights, other companies that don’t now fly into Orange County may try to get the empty slots at John Wayne Airport, he and other analysts said.
John Wayne could become home to discount airlines such as Spirit, Vanguard and Air Tran: “airlines you’ve never heard of,” Pincavage said.
The allure of easier flight slots at John Wayne Airport could entice a large discount airline to dominate the gates there, just as Southwest Airlines did when it moved into Love Field at Dallas, said Dave Ellis, a consultant with the pro-El Toro Airport Working Group of Newport Beach.
Former county supervisor Bruce Nestande, another El Toro airport booster, said John Wayne’s short runways are an impediment to longer flights but could attract existing and start-up airlines serving places like Denver, Salt Lake City, Palm Springs, Las Vegas and other coastal California cities.
South County residents opposed to El Toro contend that the county planned all along to reduce the use of John Wayne Airport, with an eye to eventually closing it to commercial traffic completely. Nestande denied the charge.
“There’s never been even a casual discussion that John Wayne Airport would close,” Nestande said. “Orange County is going to very much be in demand as a market.”
Still, some hotel operators are worried. Gregory Case, general manager of the Sheraton Newport Beach, said 60% of the hotel’s customers fly in to John Wayne Airport. He said that all eight large hotels within a mile of the airport are in the same position.
After economic booms from late 1996 through last year, the hotel market has begun to soften because of 9,100 new rooms being added to the area in the next year, he said.
“We’re already working trying to find ways to get business,” Case said. “If the airport cuts back, we’ll have to work harder.”
