Self-Interest Is Flying High in Newport Beach

Re “Pressures May Lift O.C. Flight Limits,” Dec. 6:

Let me see if I have this straight. For over a decade, we’ve been subjected to claims by Newport Beach pro-airport factions that the now-dead El Toro airport was badly needed because of huge passenger demand and air cargo needs. Figures of 30 million passengers per year and tons and tons of air cargo that would have to be handled in Orange County to keep our economy going were widely circulated and cited. Those who didn’t follow their plans were shortsighted NIMBYs.

Well now, the same Newport Beach groups that made these claims are negotiating to cap passenger capacity at the county’s only airport at only 75% of its designed capacity and cut the authorized air cargo flights by 50%.

The pro-airport, special-interest-driven minority from Newport Beach can’t have it both ways. Either there is a looming passenger capacity shortage and a need for more air cargo handling, or there isn’t. And based on their most recent actions to limit the use of John Wayne Airport below its designed and authorized levels, it would appear that they have agreed with the anti-airport majority in this county and concluded that there clearly isn’t a need. Otherwise, we’d all have to conclude that Newport Beach and its city-funded pro-airport groups are just myopic, hypocritical NIMBYs who cost the citizens of this county a decade and tens of millions of dollars trying in a selfish attempt to improve their own little quality of life at the expense of their neighbors.

Douglas K. Blaul

Trabuco Canyon

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Increasing the capacity of John Wayne Airport beyond its current physical capacity would be a big mistake for many reasons. But the hypocrisy of Newport Beach officials regarding this issue is disgusting.

Now that their 10-year effort to shift the burdens of John Wayne Airport into their neighbor’s backyard has been blocked, Newport officials are turning their attention to limiting the inevitable need for growth at John Wayne. The same officials who tried to convince us of the “need” for a 38-million annual passenger airport at El Toro are now saying that growth at John Wayne should be limited to 10.8 million passengers per year. If the “need” for new airport capacity is as strong as Newport officials have claimed, why do they now propose limits below our airport’s physical capacity of 14 million passengers a year?

The preservation of any limits at John Wayne is highly questionable. Allan Murphy, the airport director, tells us: “Everyone wants to make sure ... that we are in compliance with federal law.” Who is kidding whom? Federal law forbids local limits on commercial flights. Any future set of limits, such as those now being proposed, will clearly not be in compliance with federal law.

Michael Smith

Mission Viejo