With prospects dimming for a new airport in Orange County after voter approval of Measure F this month, millions of future passengers could be forced to look to LA-area airfields.
Los Angeles International Airport, in particular, will be pushed to its capacity much sooner than it otherwise would have been, which in turn will put more pressure on airport and city officials to speed up plans to expand. And even Ontario, which just underwent a major expansion, could find itself running out of room in only a few years.
“It’s now going to be much more difficult to ever get an airport approved in Orange County,” said Michael Armstrong, senior aviation planner with the Southern California Association of Governments. “This is going to hasten the day that LAX will be totally maxed-out, even with the planned expansion.”
LA airport officials agree.
“The lack of an airport at El Toro means you will see a (greater) increase in passengers at LAX,” said Jim Ritchie, deputy executive director for strategic planning for Los Angeles World Airports. “If anything, this makes approval of the master plan (for expansion) and the related ground transportation improvements more important.”
The $8 billion to $12 billion LAX expansion plan calls for adding a new terminal, reconfiguring the runways, adding a ring road around the airport and making other major transportation improvements. It would take the airport from its current actual volume of 64.5 million annual passengers to a maximum capacity of anywhere from 90 million to 98 million by 2015.
Opponents of the LAX expansion are looking to Orange County for additional airport capacity,if not at El Toro, then somewhere else. They have sued to stop the LAX expansion plan, which was bogged down much of last year.
“Orange County should not be permitted to avoid handling its own share of air-traffic demand,” said El Segundo Mayor Mike Gordon. “They should not get away with handling just 25% of the traffic they generate. If they decide not to build an airport at El Toro, then maybe they should expand John Wayne Airport.”
On March 7, Orange County voters, by a 2 to 1 margin, approved Measure F, which requires a two-thirds vote of the people for major infrastructure projects like airports, jails and garbage dumps. The measure was placed on the ballot by opponents of a proposed commercial airport at the now-closed El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.
Airport proponents immediately filed a legal challenge to Measure F, on the grounds that it violates the one-subject rule for initiatives and that it is unconstitutional to require a two-thirds vote for non-tax measures. And Orange County officials are preparing environmental and planning documents for an airport at El Toro, which proponents say could still be finished by 2010.
Shift of Opinion
But the overwhelming passage of the measure marks a major shift of public opinion in OC against the airport, which had survived two previous initiative efforts to kill it.
“While the airport may not be totally dead, it certainly appears to be on life-support,” said Stephen Erie, a professor of political science at UC San Diego who has studied Southern California aviation issues.
Without an airport at El Toro, increased pressure likely will be felt first on overseas flights.
“Our most acute problem is the lack of international airport capacity,” Armstrong said. “Right now, LAX is the only major international facility between San Luis Obispo and the Mexican border. El Toro was this region’s best option for a second major international airport.”
(Ontario is technically an international airport, but only offers a handful of flights to Canada and Mexico.)
Other routes could also be affected, especially shorter commuter lines that might be pushed out of LAX to other airports like Long Beach, Burbank and Van Nuys. Ultimately, if LAX becomes too congested, airlines could shift operations to other regions, like San Francisco or Las Vegas.
Traffic Effects
The effects will not be limited to the air. Getting to and from LAX will become even more nightmarish, as more travelers commute up from Orange County. Everyday commuters on the San Diego (405) Freeway will find themselves enmeshed in increasing amounts of airport traffic.
Orange County’s only current commercial airfield, John Wayne Airport, has operated near its legal limit of 8.4 million passengers a year for several years. (Last year, it handled 7.5 million, about the same as in 1998.) Without a lifting of flight caps instituted to settle lawsuits by neighbors and the city of Newport Beach and a major, costly expansion of its runway, John Wayne would only be able to handle a tiny fraction of the 15 million to 20 million additional passengers a year that SCAG projects the county will generate by 2020.
Possible Relief
In the short run, Ontario may be able to relieve some of the demand from Orange County, particularly the northern and eastern sections of the county. That airport just underwent an expansion that boosts its capacity to 10 million passengers a year; currently, only 6 million passengers a year use Ontario. And with only a little more in the way of improvements, Ontario could serve a total of 20 million passengers a year.
“Because we’ve just modernized and expanded it, Ontario is the crown jewel in our infrastructure,” said Ritchie. “Not only is it being underutilized now, but we have a community around the airport that supports expanding air traffic there.”
In fact, some representatives from the Ontario business community campaigned for Measure F, on the theory that it would force more passengers to Ontario.
But without significant runway expansion, Ontario would not be able to handle all of the growth generated by the Inland Empire, let alone Orange County.
“Trying to add someone else’s demand growth onto your own demand growth inevitably leads to problems,” said former LA World Airports director Jack Driscoll, who is now an aviation and transportation consultant.
Burbank Airport could relieve more of the pressure from LAX, but only if it is allowed to expand. And local residents and the Federal Aviation Authority are currently challenging that expansion plan.
The other airports in the region, including Palmdale and the former George Air Force Base near Victorville, are too distant for Orange County residents and most Angelenos to easily reach without major transportation improvements. And so are proposed airports at the former Norton Air Force Base near San Bernardino and the former March Air Force Base near Riverside.
“The major concentration of air travelers, at least for the foreseeable future, will remain in Los Angeles, followed closely by Orange County,” Driscoll said. “At some point, there is merit to the argument that Orange County should do its fair share.” n
Fine is a staff reporter at the Los Angeles Business Journal.
