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UCSD professor disputes need for new airport

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By: DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer | Posted: Sunday, March 12, 2006 12:00 am | Loading Font Size: Default font size Larger font size

/A jet takes off Thursday from Lindbergh Field's only runway.

BILL WECHTER Staff Photographer

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SAN DIEGO -- Lindbergh Field's lone runway is enough to handle San Diego County's air travel demand long into the future, contends a UC San Diego economics professor, who has taken issue with forecasts a regional agency is using to build a case for a new or expanded airport. Professor Richard Carson said the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority's projections are inflated because they rely on faulty economic assumptions, such as that fares will gradually decline and that people will fly more often as their incomes rise. Carson conducted an independent analysis of the need for a new international airport and presented his conclusions to an advisory airport panel March 2. Seth Young, a business professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla., who was hired by the authority to review Carson's forecast, said the UCSD professor may be correct in assuming residents won't fly more as they earn more. However, Young said that doesn't matter much because airlines likely will introduce flights to many new markets, which will spur air traffic growth well beyond what will be generated locally by San Diego County residents' travel habits. As for the notion fares will continue to decline, he said that will happen. The authority maintains Carson's projections are weighted too heavily on economics and not enough on aviation trends. The authority insists its projections are sound. Those show that 661-acre Lindbergh, one of the nation's smallest metropolitan airports, is quickly running out of room to handle the aviation needs of a metropolis where the population is expected to reach 4 million by 2030. By that year,

the authority predicts, the number of travelers passing through Lindbergh's gates will hit 25.8 million to 32.6 million. Using his different assumptions, Carson predicts the 2030 passenger total will be 24.2 million. Focused on the wrong number? Angela Shafer-Payne, vice president of strategic planning for the authority, said if anything the agency's higher forecast is too conservative. She said the agency assumed annual growth of 2.2 percent to 2.8 percent and Lindbergh posted sizzling 6 percent to 7 percent increases the last two years. Indeed, the board has said it may order a revised 2030 projection if, as of summer, the numbers have continued to rocket upward. Even if the authority is right, Carson said, that does not prove the need for a new runway at Lindbergh or for a new airport with twin, 12,000-foot runways, as the agency contends. Carson noted that, even as the passenger total rose from 13.3 million in 1995 to 17.4 million in 2005, the number of takeoffs and landings -- dubbed operations in aviation lingo -- remained flat at about 220,000 per year. He suggests the authority is too focused on passenger count and not enough on the statistic that counts most -- takeoffs and landings. "This is what has gotten them into trouble," Carson said. While authority officials acknowledge the takeoff-and-landing total has been flat, and even declined in recent years, they maintain runway operations are about to climb steeply, as in the 1980s. Between 2015 and 2022, they say, the total will reach 260,000, a critical point where congestion will be severe. For passengers, Shafer-Payne said, that could mean putting up with higher ticket prices, frequent flight delays and the inability to book a flight at the last minute. Those reasons, and more, officials say, are driving the search for a new airport site. That search is expected to culminate in May with the naming of a preferred plan for handling San Diego County's aviation needs and a countywide advisory vote in November on that plan. Besides Lindbergh itself, sites still in the running include Campo in southeastern San Diego County, Imperial County, Miramar Marine Corps Air Station, Naval Air Station North Island and a site on Camp Pendleton near Oceanside, two miles east of Interstate 5 and a mile and a half north of Highway 76. The cost for a new airport could easily exceed $10 billion. The site search Carson contends the region does not need to spend billions. He said there are ways to hold the lid on operations, even as more people fly in and out of San Diego.

Carson said the number of takeoffs and landings may well continue to be flat, anyway, because airlines are probably going to substitute 737 jets for little turboprops, as they seek to transport more passengers economically. The authority could hold down operations, too, by shifting general aviation activities -- flights by pilots of small private aircraft -- to another nearby airport, he said. General aviation accounted for 13,586 takeoffs and landings in 2005, or 6 percent of the airport's 220,000 total operations, airport spokeswoman Diana Lucero said. Carson said the agency could squeeze more capacity out of Lindbergh by establishing a fee structure based on time of day, rather than on a plane's weight. The weight-based fee has its origin in concerns that heavier aircraft exacted the most wear and tear on runways, he said, but today's runways are stronger, and weight is not a concern. By charging a premium to land during the busiest time slots, airlines would fly more often during off-peak periods, he said. "With most of the passengers being leisure passengers, it's possible to spread out the traffic," Carson said. Agency officials maintain there are problems with Carson's assumptions. For starters, Shafer-Payne said, airlines aren't likely to trade smaller planes for larger ones just for San Diego. She said carriers make major-investment decisions based on their overall needs nationwide. "That is absolutely not going to happen," Young said. Instead, he said, carriers are likely to introduce more small jets with 70 to 90 seats that will serve smaller markets more economically than large planes with 200 or more seats. 'Easier than asking Marines to move' As for moving the private pilots, the authority can't do that because it relies on funding from the Federal Aviation Administration, she said. On the other hand, she said, if the authority were given control of another airport, the agency could shift the small planes there -- if the board were to choose to do that. To be sure, obtaining permission from the Federal Aviation Administration to move general aviation would present a challenge, Carson said. "But it would be a lot easier than asking the Marines to move from Miramar," he said. However, Shafer-Payne said even if the authority were to move the private pilots, it wouldn't significantly increase capacity because of general aviation's small proportion of takeoffs and landings at Lindbergh.

Shafer-Payne also discounts the theory that charging different fees for different time slots would appreciably increase capacity. And she maintains that the strategy would discourage competition and create unpleasant side effects for passengers. "You will see prices rise and you will limit the ability to ever get new markets served out of San Diego," she said. Carson disagreed. "You may indeed reduce prices to consumers," he said. "You have to remember, this is a very competitive market." Carson said New York is preparing to introduce a time-based fee next January to wring more capacity out of severely congested LaGuardia Airport. He said the practice has worked well in Europe for years. LaGuardia, according to Shafer-Payne, is a snapshot of what Lindbergh will look like once the feared 260,000-annual-operation threshold is reached. Shafer-Payne said squeezing that many takeoffs and landings onto Lindbergh would translate into an average flight delay of 15 minutes -- in good weather. And it's not just that threshhold the authority is worried about. The agency estimates that as early as 2021, and no later than 2030, Lindbergh could reach 300,000 takeoffs and landings if no new runways are built in the county. At that point, Shafer-Payne said, delays would average 22 minutes in good weather and 52 minutes in blinding fog, which requires pilots to fly by instruments. "There is no airport in the world today that operates with that type of delay in instrument flying conditions," she said. Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 740-5442 or ddowney@nctimes.com. Read more: http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/article_75089afd-4ef6-5832-90330265f1e0c2bc.html#ixzz1Yt038kED