El Toro Sale Puts Regional Plans in a Fix

The Navy put an end Tuesday to plans for an airport at the former El Toro Marine base in Orange County, forcing regional airport planners to face a cold reality: The numbers don’t add up.

Those who favor a regional solution to the growing demand for air travel in Southern California had hoped El Toro would ease the burden on aging Los Angeles International Airport. An El Toro airport could have accommodated up to 30 million passengers by 2025. With that option gone, Southern California aviation planners must redistribute the load among the region’s other major airports.

One likely impact, officials said, will be pressure to ease traffic restrictions at Orange County’s John Wayne International Airport.

Redistributing the air traffic load presents a significant problem: Most of the region’s facilities have limitations--ranging from air quality to federal restrictions to local opposition--that hinder their growth. If aviation planners can’t overcome the hurdles, experts agree the region could lose valuable international air service to other states.

The Navy announced Tuesday that it will retain the option of selling all or part of the former Marine base but leave the ultimate decision on how the property is developed to local officials.

That puts even more focus on last year’s 25-year forecast for regional airport growth, compiled by the Southern California Assn. of Governments, which attempted to spread 167 million annual passengers among 11 regional airports. Despite a drop in traffic after Sept. 11, forecasters agree growth will resume next year. But all the airports face major challenges to expansion.

Not the least of these is Los Angeles International Airport, which served 50% more passengers last year than it was designed to handle. Mayor James K. Hahn has proposed capping the airport at 78 million passengers per year--a plan that many say isn’t likely to hold up because the airlines control service at the world’s third-busiest airport.

“For airlines like United and American there’s a good percentage of their passengers that go into Los Angeles and connect to somewhere else,” said Michael Boyd, who heads the Boyd group, an aviation consulting firm. “If you spread it out it means the airlines will start to go elsewhere.”

This is precisely what Hahn hopes to do. The mayor has proposed redistributing passenger growth that would have gone to El Toro among the region’s other airports, such as Ontario International Airport in San Bernardino County and Palmdale Airport in northern Los Angeles County.

Hahn, along with officials from communities near LAX, lobbied federal officials last week in an unsuccessful attempt to keep the El Toro airport plan alive.

“The mayor is disappointed; he believes El Toro should be built,” said Troy Edwards, deputy mayor. “But Ontario is ready and eager to serve some of those passengers.”

Ontario served about 6.5 million passengers last year, but it could not easily accept millions of additional passengers a year. For one thing, Air Quality Management District restrictions limit the facility to 12 million passengers a year. And even with two new terminals, Ontario could grow to only 10 million to 12 million without adding facilities and a new runway, officials agree.

Ontario residents and politicians have lobbied for years to add flights at the airport, but they cringe at the notion of absorbing 20 million to 38 million passengers a year if El Toro isn’t built. Those figures were devised by the Assn. of Governments as part of two scenarios in its 25-year forecast that left El Toro out of the mix.

“Can we go up to 38 million? Wow, I don’t know,” said Ontario Mayor Gary Ovitt. “We’re real concerned about our quality of life in the future. We don’t want to end up like El Segundo and some of those other cities that are negatively impacted by LAX.”

Airlines Don’t Like Palmdale as Plan B

Palmdale Airport, which hasn’t had commercial aviation service since 1997, would take 2 million to 4 million passengers a year by 2025, according to the SCAG alternative that eliminates El Toro. But airline representatives have repeatedly said they’re not interested in flying to the far-flung facility. Aviation planners said such reluctance could be overcome if federal officials intervened.

“The airlines don’t want to go to Palmdale because they have capital investments in existing facilities,’ said Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe, who also heads the Southern California Regional Aviation Authority. “But with strong direction from the Federal Aviation Administration or the Transportation Security Administration, they may want to move there.”

Other local airports said they were unsure they could take up the slack by accepting more international flights.

“To the extent that there is a demand for growth, especially in longer-haul flights, that activity would be concentrated by the airlines at LAX and Ontario and John Wayne,” said Victor Gill, a Burbank airport spokesman. “Burbank fits into a niche play. The constant growth occurs in West Coast short-haul segment.”

San Diego officials said the city’s Lindbergh Field is not an alternative to El Toro, particularly since the 526-acre facility is near capacity at 15.8 million passengers a year.

The SCAG forecast that eliminates El Toro from the regional aviation pot also carries daunting messages for local officials. If the Orange County airport isn’t there to absorb some regional aviation growth, Southern California can bet on losing air service to communities like San Francisco, Phoenix and Las Vegas, experts agree.

The region would most likely lose international flights--thus threatening LAX’s status as the gateway to the Pacific Rim--to other major airports in the West. Passengers on these flights would then take commuter aircraft to Los Angeles, or connecting flights to other cities around the country.

For example, if LAX were capped at 78 million passengers and Ontario took 20 million by 2025, the region would serve 19 million fewer passengers than forecast, forcing airports outside Southern California to take up the slack, said Hasan Ikhrata, SCAG’s manager of transportation planning.

Without El Toro, it’s also likely that airports such as Long Beach and John Wayne would have to accept more passengers. Each has local restrictions on growth--the only airports in the country that avoided a 1990 federal ban on such limits. Space at Long Beach Airport is scarce because of a 1995 federal lawsuit settlement that limited the number of commercial takeoffs at the airport to 41 per day. That was in response to local efforts to reduce noise.

John Wayne’s restrictions are contained in a 1985 agreement, approved by a federal judge, that expires Dec. 31, 2005. This agreement limits the airport to 8.4 million passengers annually. Orange County supervisors have proposed increasing the limit to 9.8 million by 2015.

But regional aviation proponents say the airport may have to be prepared to take even more.

“There’s some conversation about John Wayne growing regardless of caps,” said Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice). “Arguably, although more human beings are going to be living in the Inland Empire, the demand for air travel is growing the fastest in Orange County, and all those people can’t be exported to LAX.”

The Navy’s decision on Tuesday underscored a rift between officials in Los Angeles and Orange counties. Los Angeles lawmakers say Orange County must take its fair share of regional aviation growth, with or without El Toro.

Although Orange County generated 20% of all regional aviation demand in 1997--the latest year for which figures are available--it served only 9.4% at John Wayne. In contrast, the same year Los Angeles generated 58% of the regional demand, but served 81%.

Planners Hope Bill Will Solve the Problem

Aviation planners hope a bill by Assemblyman George Nakano (D-Torrance) will help them mend the inequity. The bill, which is scheduled to be heard by the Assembly Appropriations Committee next month, would give preference for regional transportation funds to counties that meet their regional aviation needs. Under the bill, SCAG would determine whether counties are meeting the requirements set in its transportation forecasts.

“We maintain that it’s high time Southern California had true, equitable and fair distribution of the burdens related to aviation,” said Becki Ames, Nakano’s chief of staff. “This issue of putting equity into the process lets us put some teeth into us moving forward together toward a truly regional plan.”

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Times staff writer Tony Perry contributed to this report.