Uneasy flights Sunday morning
Ben Godar
The City Council plans to send letters to two airline carriers asking
them to stop offering Sunday morning flights during
Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport’s voluntary curfew, which ends at 7
a.m.
United Airlines currently offers a 6:40 a.m. flight to San
Francisco, and American Airlines offers a 6:49 a.m. flight to Dallas.
City staff has drafted letters that were expected to be sent pending
approval by the council Tuesday night, City Atty. Dennis Barlow said.
Burbank Councilman Jef Vander Borght said it is the council’s job
to contact the airlines to give voice to community concerns.
“As representatives of the community, it’s our job to remind
United and American that this is not just an issue of airport
operation, but of community concern,” he said.
The council also plans to ask its counterparts in Glendale and
Pasadena to draft letters requesting the schedules be changed, Barlow
said. Glendale Mayor Frank Quintero said he would support sending a
similar letter asking the schedules be changed.
“I agree 100%,” Quintero said. “They should absolutely abide by
the curfew.”
While the airport attempts to adhere to the voluntary curfew,
airline operators occasionally schedule earlier flights to facilitate
connections in other cities, airport spokesman Victor Gill said.
Airlines generally change their schedules after being reminded
certain flights violate the voluntary curfew, he added.
“From time to time, these letters have yielded very direct
results,” he said.
Barlow said the council last wrote a letter requesting a schedule
change about a year ago, and has previously asked Glendale and
Pasadena officials to do likewise.
While the letters serve to keep the pressure on airlines not to
schedule earlier flights, Gill said they could also serve as a simple
reminder for any new executives who are not aware of the voluntary
curfew.
“We can’t just assume that everyone who runs an airline has
intimate knowledge of the situation at Burbank Airport,” he said.