Passengers Versus Packages Clouds Airport's Future : Growing Freight Service Weighs Heavy at Ontario International

By LOUIS SAHAGUN

Oct. 25, 1987 12 AM PT

<i> Times Staff Writer</i>

ONTARIO — In 1979, when some people thought Ontario International Airport was either a boondocks airstrip or located somewhere in Canada, about 17 million pounds of air freight moved off its Tarmac.

These days, the airport handles more than a million pounds a day ranging from letters and parcels to race horses and jet engines, making it the 16th-busiest air freight center in the nation, officials said.

But the booming cargo business here is regarded as anything but a cause for celebration among airport authorities and Ontario city officials.

In what is shaping up to be a conflict between packages and passengers, growing fleets of “flying freight trains” belonging to carriers including United Parcel Service, Federal Express and Emery Worldwide are threatening to gobble up flight operations capacity (takeoffs and landings) originally reserved for travelers, authorities said.

‘All Kinds of Business’

“Air cargo is not necessarily what Ontario International envisioned itself as doing,” Ontario Mayor Howard Snyder said. “We’ve always welcomed all kinds of business out here but it becomes a problem when a priority is put on freight haulers, as opposed to trying to cope with passenger requirements, that will be even greater in years to come.”

Snyder and some airport officials fear that additional freight traffic could hold up construction of a $200-million passenger terminal here. As it stands, the Inland Empire airport, which serves one of the fastest-growing regions in the nation, is moving nearly twice the 2.5 million annual passengers it was designed to handle.

The problem stems from a limitation on operations set in 1979 under an air quality certificate issued by the California Air Resources Board. It stipulated that the airport handle no more than 12 million passengers a year or 125,000 annual takeoffs and landings.

Mitigate Concerns

The airport had requested permission at that time to build an additional runway, and the limitations were designed to mitigate concerns about the air pollution that increased aircraft and automobile traffic would create, officials said.

The limitations were largely based on a belief then that air carriers were moving toward larger jets that would enable airports to move more passengers with fewer flights.

But that is not what happened. Neither airport authorities nor ARB officials anticipated that cargo carriers would flock to Ontario airport in search of room to expand their business and to escape the congestion and automotive snarls at Los Angeles International Airport that can cause delays in delivery.

Nor did they figure that deregulation of the airline industry would unleash a trend toward short-haul, hub flights using smaller and more fuel-efficient aircraft, a development that has resulted in more flights per day.

Approaching the Limit

Both phenomena combined to increase the numbers of takeoffs and landings at the airport, which at 96,000 are now approaching the limit. Today, air freighters account for about 10% of the Ontario airport’s takeoffs and landings, airport officials said. By comparison, they said air freighters account for about 2% of LAX’s 500,000 annual operations, although total volumes there are much larger.

Los Angeles Department of Airport authorities, who oversee international airport operations in Los Angeles and Ontario, have already begun preliminary discussions with ARB officials aimed at having the cap on operations lifted.

“We’re hoping the ARB will say we can keep the 12 million annual passengers limit and drop the 125,000 operations cap,” said Michael Di Girolamo, Ontario airport manager. “We can handle the people and the freight both if the cap on aircraft movement is lifted.”

Serious Attention

ARB spokesman William Sessa said the issue will be given serious attention when airport authorities provide the state agency with a formal proposal.

But the prospect of being turned down is already making many people nervous.

“The new terminal would be a waste of money if we found out that the ARB was not going to amend the certificate and hold us to 125,000 operations a year,” Los Angeles City Atty. Jerry Montgomery said. “Every air freight flight gobbles up an operation that doesn’t count toward Ontario passengers whatsoever.”

Rick Wells, supervising transportation planner at the Los Angeles Department of Airports, agreed. “Development at Ontario is at a standstill until we get this issue resolved with the ARB,” Wells said.

Meanwhile, UPS, which creates 80% of the air freight business at Ontario, is charging ahead with plans to build a $53-million sorting and distribution hub here on 163 acres of property adjacent to the airport, said Ken Sternad, spokesman for the delivery company. The facility would create 1,200 jobs in the area and an estimated annual payroll of $29 million, he said.

“We are going to be bringing packages into Ontario from all over the world,” Sternad said. “We currently have 11 flights a day . . . and we will be going up to 22 a day by 1995.”

‘The Easy Solution’

With so large a commitment in the works, Sternad said, “we hope that the easy solution is that they remove the operations cap and everyone can be happy.”

However, “we have not gotten final approval for the new (UPS) facility. . . . We still have to go through public hearings” related to an environmental impact study, Sternad added. “There has been some resistance from folks concerned about possible noise . . . and from those who fear too much growth in the area.”

Indeed, much of the area’s industrial and commercial development to date is related to the growth of Ontario airport, which itself is responsible for 6,000 jobs. On Oct. 15, it took another major step forward when Continental Airlines inaugurated Ontario’s first transcontinental, non-stop service to the East Coast.

‘As Bad as LAX’

“Hell, three years ago you could fire a cannon across the parking lot and not hit anybody,” observed Lloyd Nevius, 61, owner of Ontario Aircraft Service, which loads and unloads UPS’ freight at the airport and services its aircraft. “Now, it’s getting as bad as LAX.”

Nevius started his business in 1979 with a leased forklift and money borrowed on his house. That year, “we handled 5 million pounds of automotive parts headed for local assembly plants,” he said, smiling over the memory. “We thought that was a tremendous amount of freight.”

Now, “we do almost a million pounds a day for United Parcel Service alone,” said Nevius, as a dozen of his 250 employees unloaded 188,000 pounds of pineapples from the cavernous hull of a UPS 747 freighter jet in from Honolulu.

Much of his work for UPS is done out in the open on a corner of the runway offered the company when the airport ran out of aircraft parking space during a Christmas rush period three years ago, Nevius said.

Loaded, Unloaded Jets

Since then, his work crews have loaded and unloaded jets large and small there with an increasing variety of items needing quick delivery to Southern California addresses as well as to cities across the nation.

“We’ve moved computer and electronic parts, cattle, oil well pipe and diving equipment for a ship that was in trouble off South America,” he said. “And we’ve moved rock band equipment, pineapples and even alligators, snakes and turtles.”

As another UPS freighter jet rolled up to park at the loading lot, a passenger jet roared off into the smoggy skies above the airport.

“I think passengers and freighters will have to work together here,” he said, surveying the activity. “I think there is room for both.”

ONTARIO AIRPORT TRAFFIC

Air Freight** Year Passengers* % Change (in tons) % Change 1986 4,245,349 +16.2 199,978 +13.1 1985 3,652,823 +18.9 176,488 +19.6 1984 3,073,272 +24.3 147,529 +55.9 1983 2,472,346 +22.1 94,600 +68.9 1982 2,024,000 +12.1 56,602 +484.6 1981 1,805,383 -9.9 9,579 +101.1 1980 2,004,692 -15.1 4,773 -44.1 1979 2,360,665 +17.7 8,543 +90.7 1978 2,005,086 +19.3 4,478 +31.3 1977 1,680,556 +17.1 3,418 +9.1

* Includes commuter, non-scheduled and alternate operations ** Includes shipping and receiving Source: Ontario International Airport