"Latest battle of Midway centers on airport"

Friday, May 24, 2002  

Closing Midway Aides Gooney Birds, But Ruins War Veterans' Ceremony
By ANDY PASZTOR 
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL


Specks of U.S. territory in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the Midway
Islands are known best for their World War II role as a jumping-off
point for U.S. forces beginning to turn the tide against Japan. Now the
islands are emerging from another battle -- albeit one far less
momentous -- over who will maintain and man Midway's isolated airport .
And in an odd twist, this current fracas involves some of the same
soldiers who fought on Midway six decades ago.

Over the past few years, Boeing Co. has quietly subsidized a private
company, Midway Phoenix Corp., to run Hendersen Field -- Midway's
single, pitted strip -- and to keep rudimentary emergency services
running, primarily as a selling point to airlines using Boeing's
two-engine 777 for trans-Pacific routes that can last 14 hours or more.
Under Federal Aviation Administration rules, such twin-engine jets
aren't allowed to stray as far from potential places to put down as
four-engine jets, many of them made by Boeing archrival Airbus.
 
But three weeks ago Midway Phoenix pulled out, and the FAA shut the
airport down. The company had invested $15 million in facilities
designed to attract tourists -- a stylish gourmet restaurant and a
deep-sea fishing center among the amenities -- but had clashed
repeatedly with the island's administrator, the Fish and Wildlife
Service of the U.S. Department of Interior, over the company's proposals
to open up more beaches (closed to protect seals and other animals) and
to encourage small cruise ships to anchor in the lagoon.

The Fish and Wildlife Service "kept restricting what we could do," says
Bob Tracey, an executive at Midway Phoenix, based in Cartersville, Ga.
"It was supposed to be a model government-company relationship. But as
it evolved, we couldn't see our way clear to make any money." An
Interior spokesman counters that the company knew precisely what
restrictions it faced in a wildlife sanctuary, adding that the
government went out of its way to be flexible and agreed that Midway
Phoenix wouldn't have to pay nearly $2 million in disputed bills.

In pulling out, Midway Phoenix took with it around 150 assorted laborers
who operated not only the airport but also the water, electric and
sewage systems. In making its decision to close the airport , the FAA
determined that the federal conservation officials remaining on the
island weren't capable of running Hendersen, its tower or its fire and
rescue teams. The FAA action put Midway off-limits to all carriers, some
of which have had to shift their routes to meet FAA landing proximity
guidelines, and it left some elderly veterans of the Battle of Midway in
the lurch.

The veterans and their supporters have spent the past 18 months planning
for an early June ceremony on Midway commemorating their victory there
in 1942. Sponsors of the event were told the FAA wouldn't permit their
chartered Boeing 737 to make the 2,000 nautical mile round trip between
the island and Hawaii, unless it can refuel mid-trip, which is to say on
Midway. "This is not like flying from Dallas to Kansas City," notes
Craig Roberts, a congressional staffer backing the veterans.

The finger-pointing is vigorous.

Jim D'Angelo, president of the foundation organizing the ceremony,
blames the Fish and Wildlife Service for much of the trouble. From the
start, he says, the agency "basically didn't have any interest" in
honoring vets seeking to return to Midway. But the cash-strapped
service, which normally has fewer than two dozen staffers and
contractors on the island, argues that it's not in the airport business.

The FAA says it is working hard to come up with a fix, and lately all
sides seem optimistic a compromise will be reached. FAA officials have
declared Hendersen Field "vital to aviation safety" but, as elsewhere,
refuse to actually operate an airport .

Boeing, which provided some $5 million to Midway Phoenix over the years,
has always described Midway as a central element in its campaign to get
carriers to adopt the 777. It now says that the field's closing doesn't
pose any imminent safety challenges, but it suggests that airlines with
a big Trans-Pacific presence pitch in to keep the field operating. "All
members of the aviation community should contribute to the solution,"
says Chet Ekstrand, the Boeing point man on Midway issues. But the
airlines worry that if they start chipping in at Midway, they will set
an expensive precedent world-wide.

Midway, so remote that its islands weren't discovered by sailors until
1859, only really became a part of the rest in the world in the 1930s
when Pan American Airway's pioneering Flying Clipper seaplanes started
touching down there on their way to the Far East. From the 1940s through
1997, the uninhabited three-square-mile island remained essentially
off-limits to civilians as a ward of the U.S. military, which used it to
listen in on Russian subs and to fuel planes shuttling troops and
materiel during the Korean and Vietnam wars. After that, the Department
of Interior stepped in with the primary task of protecting Midway's
wildlife, particularly the famed Laysan Albatross, better know as the
gooney bird.

More than one million gooney birds call Midway home for about six months
of the year. With their ungainly walk and 7-foot wingspan, the birds
choke Midway's roads and paths and have to be manually carried off the
airstrip. That being the case, aircraft takeoffs and landings are
normally banned during the daylight hours of "Gooney Season."

But even with the precautions, veteran Aloha Airlines pilot Greg Croydon
said during a trip years ago, "It's not a question of whether you will
take a bird in the engine, but when."

midway_map.gif