LB Mayor Garcia, Councilmember Supernaw criticize plans to make airport international

[aesop_image imgwidth=”500px” img=”http://www.signaltribunenewspaper.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Screen-Shot-2016-12-15-at-1.59.50-PM.png” credit=”Photos by CJ Dablo | Signal Tribune” align=”right” lightbox=”on” caption=”At the Dec. 13 Long Beach City Council meeting, residents carry signs protesting any plans to build a federal-inspection service (FIS) facility at the Long Beach Airport. ” captionposition=”right” revealfx=”off”] [aesop_character name=”CJ Dablo” caption=”Staff Writer” align=”left” force_circle=”off”] The controversy over the proposal to effectively allow the Long Beach Airport to offer international flights couldn’t be muted over the holidays. At one point at the Dec. 13 City Council meeting, protestors, including many who said they lived under the flight path of the planes serving the municipal airport, filled just about every seat in the Long Beach City Council Chamber.
There were still a dozen or so who were still in line to have their bags searched before they entered City Hall. A security officer warned them that the chamber was filled to capacity and that there were even people sitting in the aisles. Those who couldn’t get a seat inside the chamber decided to watch from the overflow seating in the building’s lobby.
Among them, Long Beach resident Lynette Hagen hung toward the back of the room. The 60-year-old 4th District resident said that from her vantage point on a house on a corner, she regularly sees airport travelers park their cars on her street for a few days, opting to take a car service to the airport to avoid parking fees. Hagen said she worries about the increased noise, traffic and pollution that could come as a result if the city council approves the proposal to transform the Long Beach Airport from a domestic airport into an international one.
“Well, we hear every plane that goes by,” Hagen said, adding that she believes she lives about half a mile from the airport. “And so we hear all of the noise. It’s fine. When I bought the house, I knew the airport was there, but I was thinking it was going to be a small airport, not an international airport.”
Hagen isn’t alone in feeling this way. Most of the residents who filled the council chamber that night to listen to the study carried professionally printed and laminated signs in protest.
The study is one of several community meetings to discuss JetBlue Airways’s request for a federal-inspections service (FIS) at the airport, and each time the topic has come up, a fairly vocal group of residents who live near the airport have protested the proposal. If the council is serious about allowing airlines to offer international flights, they would need to approve that inspection facility.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia acknowledged the community’s response to the proposal and tried to reassure the residents that he was listening to their concerns. He also posed some fairly tough questions to Long Beach Airport Director Jess Romo, who presented a summary of the study conducted by consultant group Jacobs.
There is a limit to how many flights per day could be scheduled. Citing the study, Romo presented a four-year outlook that anticipated that six out of 50 flights initially would be international ones, totaling about 12 percent of the flights. Jacobs projected that over four years, that number would increase to about eight out of 50 flights, or 16 percent. Garcia asked if there were any estimates beyond four years.
Romo drew groans from the audience when he replied that estimates beyond that time frame would be “speculative” at best, adding that even projecting air travel to eight years would be hard to predict.
Garcia wouldn’t let that answer slide, asking whether Romo believed if the international air travel could be anticipated to either plateau or have a small increase.
“If this moves forward, we [!]would live with this for longer than four years,” Garcia said. “So what do you see happening out in the future?”
Romo explained that the noise ordinance only allows 50 flights per day, and each carrier determines the routes their planes would take, and when Garcia continued to press him further, he acknowledged that at his own best estimate, the number of flights could go up incrementally higher than 16 percent but no higher than 20 percent. Romo added that in his time managing the Ontario International Airport, that airport has only had about 3 percent of the flights serving international destinations. Romo said that figure has been stuck at 3 percent for a few years.
[aesop_image imgwidth=”500px” img=”http://www.signaltribunenewspaper.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Screen-Shot-2016-12-15-at-1.59.44-PM.png” align=”left” lightbox=”on” caption=”A study session to discuss a proposal to transform the local municipal airport from a domestic airport into an international one drew a large opposing crowd to the Dec. 13 Long Beach City Council meeting. Community members who couldn’t get a seat in the city council chamber watched the proceedings in an overflow area in the city hall’s lobby.” captionposition=”left” revealfx=”off”] “I would say that 16 percent, or eight flights, is likely at the upper limit of what we would see here at Long Beach Airport,” Romo concluded.
Garcia replied that Long Beach’s airport is different from other airports since the number of flights are capped. He noted that any growth of international business will be at the expense of offering domestic flights. He cited the value of domestic flights since they also helped the city’s convention business.
“For every international flight that we gain,” Garcia concluded, “and this is an important conversation we should have, we will be losing domestic service.”
Fourth District Councilmember Daryl Supernaw had other criticisms of the proposal, and he offered his own presentation, complete with slides and graphs. Supernaw projected quotes from Robert Land onto the chamber’s screen. Land is JetBlue’s senior vice president for government affairs and associate general counsel. He had previously stated JetBlue’s unequivocal support for Long Beach’s noise ordinance.
Taking on a humorous air and drawing applause at key intervals from the audience, Supernaw disputed JetBlue’s support. He cited figures over one year that showed that JetBlue’s planes were regularly still flying past the noise curfew times.
“So, out of the 366 days, JetBlue violated the ordinance 375 times,” Supernaw said. “So, that’s our experience. So, if you want to know why the audience members are a little bit cynical or mistrustful, you can go back to these figures here.”
He also took issue with those who favored an international airport and argued that the destination and arrival cities would not impact whether planes would comply with the noise ordinance. Supernaw cited JetBlue’s recent announcement that offered flights to Fort Lauderdale in Florida. Earlier this year, Hurricane Matthew struck the area, and Supernaw pointed out that JetBlue and other carriers cancelled and delayed flights. He noted two inbound and outbound flights on the airline’s schedule, which were already scheduled close to the curfew time.
Supernaw said that the Fort Lauderdale International Airport reported 79 delays and 38 cancellations. “Am I making my point,” Supernaw concluded, “that where the plane comes from, does matter?”
Supernaw noted that while Acapulco wasn’t a listed destination from JetBlue, that airport has an on-time rate of 60 percent.
“So if they have planes flying out of there, coming into Long Beach,” he said, “we run the risk of those late-night violations all the time.”
What Supernaw may not have realized was that Land, the senior executive he had criticized, was in the audience that night until later in the meeting. Call it an “Oh, snap!” moment.
After the meeting, Land offered a brief interview with the Signal Tribune. He didn’t want to dispute all of Supernaw’s arguments, but he did defend his remarks about supporting the noise ordinance.
“JetBlue’s schedule is completely compliant with the noise ordinance,” Land said. “It has to be, otherwise the City wouldn’t let us fly here.”
He did note that largely weather and some mechanical issues account for the airline’s flight delays. Land argued that the numbers aren’t that bad.
“On occasion, on average less than once a day,” Land said, “sometimes when there’s a big storm out east and all our planes primarily out east are caught up in that storm, we don’t get permission from the FAA to take off.”
He noted that every area has weather and even Bay Area cities have fog and visibility issues.
Land declined to discuss at length the consent decree that JetBlue has entered into with the City of Long Beach. Every violation of the noise restrictions requires that JetBlue pay a fine. The JetBlue executive acknowledged that the agreement is renewed annually.
The City Council is scheduled to vote on the issue on Jan. 24.