Air Passenger Count for O.C. 33% Too High

Regional airport officials have acknowledged that they overestimated by 4 million the number of airline passengers leaving or heading to Orange County--a number that supporters have used to justify plans for an airport at the closed El Toro Marine base.

The Southern California Assn. of Governments estimated in a report approved in May that Orange County accounted for 16 million of the 89 million passengers using Southern California airports in 2000. Officials with Los Angeles World Airports, which operates Los Angeles International and Ontario International, have said that Orange County travelers account for about 12 million of LAX’s annual passenger load, which last year was 67 million.

But the actual number of Orange County travelers using all airports in 2000 was 12 million, SCAG aviation planner Mike Armstrong said last week.

About 7 million Orange County passengers traveled through John Wayne. That left LAX and Ontario picking up the remaining 5 million, he said.

Armstrong said the miscalculation doesn’t affect SCAG’s estimate of future airport demand or the agency’s support for a new airport at El Toro.

“It was an oversight,” he said of the 16-million figure, which was included in SCAG’s report in response to questions from El Toro anti-airport activist Len Kranser of Laguna Beach. Kranser first challenged the demand figures in February and asked for justification of SCAG’s estimates.

“It’s fair to say if they can’t measure the current passengers correctly, how can they project passengers into the future?” Kranser said. “Building the second-largest airport in Southern California [at El Toro] simply isn’t justified by the demand generated by Orange County.”

Anti-airport spokeswoman Meg Waters said future airline passengers can be accommodated at current airports, including John Wayne.

“Why would we go and build a $3-billion airport [at El Toro] when we have an airport sized right for the foreseeable future?” she said.

The problem with the airport demand figures lies in how Orange County’s portion of Southern California air travel was calculated--not only by SCAG but by other regional officials. Instead of including only passengers who began or ended their airline trips in Orange County, officials factored in millions of passengers from outside Southern California who used regional airports for connecting flights.

About a third of LAX travelers--22 million last year--are connecting passengers, as are about 3% of Ontario’s 6.5 million passengers. None of those passengers should have been attributed to Orange County’s share of airport demand, Armstrong said.

But El Toro airport supporters have used the demand figures in their arguments. John Wayne Airport cannot handle the load, they have said, because it is limited to 8.4 million passengers a year through a court agreement that expires in 2005. It sits on 500 acres with only one commercial runway and even with a limited expansion could handle only about 12 million passengers a year, county consultants have said.

SCAG’s long-range airport planning for the region shows about 30 million passengers using either John Wayne or an El Toro airport in 2025. Of that number, 25 million would be passengers beginning or ending their trips in Orange County. The remainder would be out-of-county passengers. If John Wayne Airport stays its current size, Orange County could handle its own travel demand with an airport at El Toro serving 18 million passengers, Armstrong said.

That conclusion is fine with Cynthia P. Coad, chairwoman of the Orange County Board of Supervisors, who two years ago proposed downsizing El Toro plans. Current plans have it handling 28.8 million passengers by 2025. Coad has suggested building the terminal to handle 18.8 million passengers.

She said last week that the overestimation of current airport users doesn’t invalidate other reasons for building a new airport, including the economic boost it would bring and the need to provide more capacity for cargo, most of which is shipped from LAX or Ontario.

“My goal is to make sure we have what business needs so residents and their children have a strong-enough economy that they don’t have to leave Orange County,” she said.

Kranser said that the miscalculations make him suspicious of SCAG’s forecasts for the future. For example, SCAG estimated in 1982 that airport demand in 1995 could top 110 million, he said; the actual number of passengers in 1995 was 74 million.

A coalition of South County cities last month sued SCAG over its long-range airport plans, saying they are flawed and based on the assumption that El Toro will be built. The plans also assume that John Wayne Airport will stay capped at 8.4 million passengers through 2025.