SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA / A news summary : The Local Review / DEVELOPMENTS IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY : Airline Industry Group Attacks Terminal Plan

A compromise plan for a new Burbank airport terminal has come under attack by a powerful airline industry group, which cited grave concerns over plans to close the facility overnight.

The opposition from the Air Transport Assn. poses a serious threat to the terminal plan, which would be paid for in part by landing fees imposed on the airlines.

“If you want undertake a project such as a terminal, you want to have the airlines on board,” said Victor Gill, a spokesman for the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority. “We intend to do everything we can to ensure that they support this project.”

In an Aug. 16 letter, the Air Transport Assn. asked the Federal Aviation Administration’s chief counsel, Nicholas G. Garaufis, to review a tentative deal reached earlier this month between negotiators for the city of Burbank and the airport authority.

In particular, the association objected to a plan to close the passenger terminal between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. The “backdoor curfew” was proposed after the FAA said a flight curfew could not be imposed without a costly noise study.

“We are opposed to this agreement in its current form,” Kris Fitzgerald, director of government affairs for the Air Transport Assn., said Monday. “The restriction on the terminal is clearly an end run around federal law.”

Burbank city leaders say that the measure is a creative solution that balances homeowner demands for an overnight curfew fewer against the inability of local officials to impose an outright flight curfew.

FAA administrator Jane Garvey “asked us to come up with a local solution and we hope she’s prepared to give us the assurances we need to make this plan work,” said Burbank Mayor Stacey Murphy.