An Airport Awaiting a Crucial Decision

On the 10th anniversary of the opening of a bigger and modernized John Wayne Airport, its future remains mired in the latest chapter of a long-running battle over whether it will be the only commercial airfield in Orange County.

The uncertainty reigns even as Orange County residents increasingly have said in opinion polls that they would rather keep their mid-sized airport than have the county build a $2.9-billion replacement at the closed El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Newport Beach reluctantly agreed in 1985 to settle a lawsuit and allow a $310 million expansion of the airport.

County supervisors had promised that, within 20 years, there would be a second airport in Orange County that would either replace John Wayne or reduce traffic there.

Now, as traffic at John Wayne approaches a court-ordered limit of 8.4 million passengers a year, nervous airport-area residents are monitoring festivities this weekend--which mark the 10th anniversary of major renovations--with an eye toward 2005, when the passenger cap will expire.

“Airport wars are like water wars in California: They last forever,” said David Ellis, a political consultant who has spent 20 years dealing with airport growth issues.

Ten years ago this week, the newly revamped airport was flush with praise and promise. Hundreds of VIPs in black tie and evening gowns wandered through the cavernous terminal, sampling gourmet cuisine under barrel-vaulted ceilings and on German marble floors.

Opening the doors meant the airport could swell immediately from 2.5 million passengers a year to more than 4 million. Gone were the portable trailers and cramped check-in booths and the single set of bathrooms. Among other amenities: covered parking, frozen yogurt and McDonald’s.

Then there was the new terminal. Though some criticized it as an overgrown Quonset hut, at 337,000 square feet, it was 12 times the size of the old one. Equipped with fancy new jet ways, it beat the old days, when travelers trudged across uncovered tarmac to board planes.

For Saturday’s festivities, airport officials handed travelers luggage tags and thank-you notes from Airport Manager Alan Murphy, who was project manager for the airport expansion for 10 years. A John Wayne look-a-like wandered through the terminal for photos.

It hadn’t been an easy rebirth for the new airport. A flurry of lawsuits led to a tortuous compromise that reduced the county’s expansion plan and left all sides dissatisfied. Next came a three-month delay in the opening of the terminal, whose original $42-million estimate swelled to $67 million in actual costs.

Overriding all the activity was the sense of a decision delayed: No matter how much was spent and how grand the new “boutique airport,” it wasn’t expected to handle the county’s needs into the new millennium.

“A lot of the controversy surrounding the project was way overstated,” said lobbyist Randy Smith, who helped shepherd the airport project 10 years ago. “I think it’s worked well and things have gone smoothly. It was a good investment in the short term.”

Four years ago, the Board of Supervisors officially designated John Wayne Airport as part of a two-airport system, to be joined in 2005 by a new airport at El Toro envisioned as serving 28.8 million passengers a year. John Wayne Airport would continue operating, handling about 7 million passengers a year.

Since then, about $40 million in proceeds from John Wayne--earned from landing fees and terminal concessions--has been spent planning the new El Toro airport, which is about a year from final approval.

John Wayne Airport continues to be a cash cow for the airlines, despite several years of mergers and retrenchment in the airline industry in the 1990s. The airport offers 140 arrivals and 140 departures a day among 10 carriers: Alaska, America West, American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, Southwest, Trans World Airlines, United and USAirways.

The airport’s ability to plow money into El Toro while still paying off its bond obligations early is a testament to its attractiveness. Long-standing estimates that flights to each airline at John Wayne were worth roughly $1 million a year haven’t been disputed. The latest airline interested in serving John Wayne, Aloha Airlines, came with statistics showing that Orange County residents are among the busiest travelers in the country.

Ultimately, the fate of the airport is inexorably tied to who wins the debate over El Toro. If there is no new airport, most county, state and federal officials predict that it will be only a matter of time before supervisors turn to John Wayne Airport for yet another expansion.

In fact, a backup plan in the county’s El Toro environmental review contemplates solving the no-new-airport problem by condemning nearly 800 acres around the airport and extending its runway across the San Diego Freeway.

Foes of the new airport, meanwhile, insist that government officials consistently inflate airport demand estimates, currently at nearly 180 million travelers in Southern California in the next 20 years. Estimates show that about 30 million will come to and from Orange County.

Airport foes insist that the real demand is much less, and that John Wayne Airport can accommodate a reasonable amount of local traffic without the county’s expansion alternative. In recent months, activists have pledged to work with Newport Beach-area groups to keep the county from expanding John Wayne Airport beyond its current size.