Time for an Airport Solution

It’s getting to be downright hard to keep track of the number of groups that oppose the draft agreement on a new Burbank Airport terminal.

There are the homeowners groups that never met an airport they liked and the Airport Transport Assn., an airline trade group that never met one it didn’t.

A trio of powerful congressmen has weighed in on behalf of homeowners, at least the ones in their districts, while the Federal Aviation Administration has raised concerns that the same provision the airlines don’t like--closing the terminal at night as a de facto curfew--may not comply with federal law. A superior court judge wants more time to answer questions about state laws. And the Los Angeles city attorney wants a new environmental study.

The Burbank City Council, which must approve or reject the plan, is talking special advisory election while a former council member is furiously collecting signatures to force a municipal ballot initiative.

It’s too easy to say that if nobody likes an agreement, it must be a pretty good compromise. But it is instructive to note just how much disagreement there is because it underscores how really difficult this compromise has been to hammer out--and how truly difficult, if not impossible, it’s going to be for any side to get everything it wants.

We maintain that the city of Burbank has come pretty close. Having fought an expansion of the airport for decades, Burbank would essentially get to keep the status quo, albeit a safer and more comfortable status quo with the bonus of additional noise restrictions. The new terminal would have the same number of gates--14--as the old terminal, but it would be built at a safer distance from the runway and would have more room for waiting areas, concessions and other amenities.

Adding gates would depend on the airport winning FAA approval for a nighttime curfew, and even then the number of new gates would be limited. Homeowner groups that want a curfew now, before a new terminal of any kind can be built, need to recognize that the FAA might not even approve the agreement’s stealth curfew of shutting down the terminal at night. Does that mean opponents want the terminal to remain as is--half the distance it should be from the runways?

The agreement calls for a series of hearings before the City Council vote. By all means, all sides should come together and talk out their differences. But they should come with the aim of finding solutions--not airing the same old uncompromising positions we’ve heard over and over again.