El Toro Airport Pros and Cons

* Your June 30 article reporting that John Wayne Airport is the world’s 18th-busiest airport ignored a very significant factor. John Wayne is, essentially, a one-runway airport. The busier U.S. airports have multiple runways, easing congestion and promoting safety. That John Wayne ranks second in the nation for dangerous runway intrusions should be a wake-up call to avoid an aviation disaster.

It has been suggested by several of your readers that a transfer of general aviation activity from John Wayne to El Toro would enhance safety, reduce flight delays and provide space for a sensible expansion of John Wayne’s facilities. Has this alternative ever been seriously studied?

PETER BRENNAN

Laguna Woods

* Your June 18 editorial (“Another Dirty El Toro Secret”) drips with your persistent anti-airport El Toro bias.

You express surprise that an airport might cause pollution. The L.A. basin is full of pollution. Newport Bay is full of pollution. And the sky is falling. The Times just continues to stir the pot instead of presenting facts. You’re really stretching the point when you accuse the Board of Supervisors of trying to keep some secret about pollution.

Over the next 20 years, I guess millions of NIMBY air travelers, as they converge on LAX, Ontario and other NIMBY-designated departure points, will spew their ground and air pollution all over some other county, and pollution will become a figment of someone else’s imagination.

VICTOR H. JASHINSKI

Corona del Mar

* We already have an airport, John Wayne Airport, operating below its temporary “legal” limits, and at half its current physical capacity. Increased air traffic in Orange County should be absorbed first at John Wayne, before talk of a new airport.

Second, we have Ontario and March airports nearby, and neither can compete now or in the future with LAX for destinations, frequencies, convenience or international flights (the same would be true for a new El Toro airport). Both are operating well below capacity and want our passengers.

Third, the county cannot demonstrate a need for a new airport. The current Orange County-generated use of LAX and John Wayne, coupled with the projected 25% population growth in the county over the next 20 years, adds up to no more than 16 million passengers by 2020. Fully 40% of this “demand” currently chooses LAX for reasons cited above, and can be expected to continue doing so. John Wayne can handle this “demand” without physical expansion.

MICHAEL SMITH

Mission Viejo

* Our three pro-airport supervisors must know more than the people who are out there controlling aircraft flights every day. In light of the recent warning letter from the National Air Traffic Controllers Assn. to Chuck Smith, chairman of the Board of Supervisors, you would hope that supervisors would stop planning an airport at El Toro. But no. At some point, you have to ask yourself why are they pursuing this unsafe airport plan and why won’t they admit that John Wayne Airport will be closed?

MIKE BARON

Aliso Viejo