Burbank Leaders to Meet FAA

Even though the Burbank Airport authority has halted its two-decade quest to build a new terminal, and the FAA has declared that the airport can safely operate without a new one, a handful of Burbank city officials refuse to let the issue die.

Later this month, Vice Mayor Stacey Murphy and City Councilman David Golonski will lead a delegation of local officials to Washington to meet with the Federal Aviation Administration, hoping to resurrect plans for a new terminal.

Airport safety is not their prime concern; noise -- the perennial stumbling block -- is. The delegation hopes to persuade the FAA to limit nighttime flights over the area to reduce the roar of jet engines. With such a guarantee, they say, a new terminal will be an easier sell to local residents whose protests have long blocked the project.

Golonski said: “The FAA would be happier because it has a new terminal. The airport will have modern facilities. Residents of Burbank would be happier because they have nighttime protection from noise.”

Only the FAA can prohibit aircraft from taking off and landing at airports through curfews and restrictions. Burbank wants to restrict all airplanes -- from small single-engine aircraft to larger passenger jets -- from the airport between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. The FAA, which requires a long and complicated review process for curfews, has never granted the kind of sweeping restrictions that Burbank wants and may be reluctant to set a precedent, aviation experts said.

But Burbank officials believe the time is right to present their case to the agency, as recently appointed FAA Administrator Marion C. Blakey takes over. The delegation’s mission reflects just how dissatisfied many involved in the 20-year battle remain.

Some airport officials and pilots continue to maintain that the 72-year-old passenger terminal is a safety hazard. Portions of the terminal come as close as 313 feet to a runway. FAA design standards call for at least a 750-foot buffer. The FAA believes that Burbank Airport is the only major commercial air facility in the country that does not conform to such standards.

“It’s a dangerous situation for a terminal to be that close to two active runways that intersect,” said Jon Russell, regional safety chairman for the Air Line Pilots Assn.

Members of the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority remain sharply divided on the issue. They voted 5 to 4 in November to abandon plans to relocate the passenger terminal, which would cost $300 million.

But they continue the debate. Airport Commissioner John Crowley, who voted against the terminal, said he is uncomfortable with its proximity to the runway. “The collision of aircraft landing with parked aircraft could be an issue.”

Although residents claimed a major victory in the vote, noisy aircraft still disrupt their lives late into the night. A voluntary curfew that only applies to airlines from 10 p.m. until 7 a.m. is in place, but is sometimes ignored. It does not include general-aviation aircraft and cargo planes.

Residents’ opposition to airplane noise has influenced the political landscape in Burbank for years. Politicians know that support for a new terminal without restriction on airport growth is “not a winning platform in Burbank,” City Manager Robert “Bud” Ovrom said.

Even some members of the delegation say the chances of getting the FAA to grant a curfew are slim. “We are going to talk to an administrator who probably just came out of a meeting with airlines that are going bankrupt, airlines barely hanging on by the thread of their teeth,” said Airport Authority President Chris Holden.

The airport authority already has invested $4 million in an analysis of the cost and benefits of flight curfews for Stage 3 aircraft, the quietest of popular jets in the United States. The study is expected to be ready for FAA review by the end of this year or early next year. The FAA declined to comment about the impending meeting or Burbank’s chances of winning curfews, because the study is not complete.

“The bar is set very high for restrictions on flights,” said Steve Alverson, a Sacramento-based noise consultant. “The FAA promotes aviation. They want airports to be open and freely used.”

Orange County’s John Wayne Airport has had a curfew since 1985, restrictions that were in place five years before a federal law required that airports go through a long and complicated FAA process to obtain a curfew.

If the FAA were to permit a curfew at Burbank, it could start a rash of requests from other airports, aviation experts said.

Airport officials say they have tried for years to be a good neighbor. In 1987, Burbank became the first commercial airport in the country to require airlines to use quieter jets, spokesman Victor Gill said.

In recent years, the airport has spent $32 million -- mostly from federal grants -- on soundproofing hundreds of homes in the airport’s flight path. Despite the FAA’s recent assurances that new takeoff, landing and taxiway procedures have made Burbank Airport safe, agency officials in the past have pointed out problems and urged that the terminal be replaced.

In a 1982 letter, the FAA told the airport that a new terminal location was a “key factor in the enhancement of safety.” In 1986, the agency declared that it objects “to the continual deviation of design standards in the terminal area.... The long-term solution is to pursue location of a new terminal.” The agency noted in a 1996 report: “The present terminal building was constructed and has been in use prior to World War II and does not meet minimum FAA design standards.”

Some aviation experts maintain that safety must take precedence over all other concerns and say the need for a new terminal and the noise issue are separate issues and should be treated that way. “All you need is a big accident, and then you’ll have all kinds of I-told-you-sos everywhere,” said Vernon L. Grose, a former member of the National Transportation Safety Board, who also has served as an aviation safety consultant to the White House.