"Californian sues Idaho airport to land his 737"

Tuesday, September 2, 2003

Californian sues Hailey airport to land his 737
But the asphalt runway cannot handle heavy jets 
The Idaho Statesman


HAILEY — The airport in this mountain town is so small that when terrorism
alerts restrict cars to 300 feet from the terminal, the entire parking lot
has to be closed. 

Friedman Memorial Airport is a busy gateway to the Sun Valley ski resort
that is a magnet for the rich and famous, but only small commercial and
private aircraft are allowed to land. Heavier jets, such as Boeing 737s, are
banned because they would damage the asphalt runway, local officials say. 

That rule is what led to all the trouble. 

Ronald Tutor, a California construction mogul, wants to fly his customized
Boeing 737 to Hailey when he visits his vacation home in Sun Valley. 

In a lawsuit that has made Hailey´s airport the focal point of a debate
about the future of small airports across the nation, Tutor is asking a
federal court to lift the ban that prevents his 170,000-pound jet from
landing here. That´s 75,000 pounds more than the runway is built to
withstand. 

Local officials say that if they are forced to accept Tutor´s jet and
similar aircraft, they would have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to
repair the 6,602-foot runway and close the airport for three months while
the work was done. 

Tutor´s case, which is set for trial early next year in Boise, is being
watched by government and airport officials from California to New York. It
essentially asks what obligation small, financially stretched airports have
to some of America´s wealthiest people, and it comes at a time of tight
government budgets and costly new security requirements. 

Several general aviation airports — those that primarily handle
non-commercial aircraft — are being asked to accept Boeing 737 jets such as
Tutor´s, which is nearly twice as heavy as the Bombardier and Gulfstream
jets that account for much of the Hailey traffic. 

Tutor´s lawsuit focuses on the technicalities of asphalt strength and weight
restrictions, but he finds himself cast as the villain in a local drama that
is more about wealth, excess and a small town´s desire to remain small. 

“These are factual issues, but it´s being made into an emotional one,” Tutor
said. “I´ve had crank letters, phone calls, you name it. I´m the big, bad
rich guy.” 

The dispute is rooted in the roaring 1990s, when multimillionaires flush
with cash began trading in their private jets for ones that were bigger,
more luxurious and capable of traveling hundreds of miles farther without
refueling. 

Just as increasingly large SUVs became popular on America´s roads, business
jets became bigger and more extravagant. The Boeing business jet, a luxury
version of the 737 commercial workhorse, was introduced in 1996 and sells
for about $50 million. It can fly from Los Angeles to Paris without
stopping, and it has full-sized shower, a bedroom with a queen-sized bed and
a range of comforts. 

Pushing limits in Hailey 

The Idaho dispute began in late 2001 when Tutor, chief executive officer of
Tutor-Saliba Corp., a multibillion-dollar public works construction company,
asked to land his new 737 at Hailey. 

At the time, Tutor also owned a smaller Gulfstream, which he had used to
travel to Sun Valley. Hailey´s airport manager, Rick Baird, told Tutor that
he was welcome in the Gulfstream but not in the 737. 

For six months, lawyers for the men traded letters. Tutor offered to do his
own study that presumably would show that the runway´s asphalt could
withstand landings by his jet. (Boeing has done such a study, which it has
supplied to Tutor.) Baird declined the offer. 

Tutor threatened, through his lawyer, to fly his 737 in anyway, carrying
less fuel so it would land at a svelte 115,000 pounds. 

Tutor´s suit argues that because the Hailey airport accepts federal funds,
it can´t unreasonably deny access to the airport. “It´s not their personal
airport,” he said. 

Some residents were offended by Tutor´s threat to land in defiance of the
ban. He was criticized as a rich Californian. In letters to the Idaho
Mountain Express newspaper, readers asked why his smaller jet wasn´t good
enough. “A person as greedy and selfish as you does not fit the warm,
personable qualities we have in this valley,” one reader wrote. 

Where the stars are 

Hailey residents have catered to and endured the whims of the wealthy and
the Hollywood crowd since 1936, when railroad tycoon Averell Harriman built
the resort. 

There is a ski run named after Arnold Schwarzenegger, who flies in from Los
Angeles aboard a small jet. When Tom Hanks got into a legal spat with his
builder over work on his Hailey home, no one objected when the local judge
sealed the court record as a courtesy. 

Former Hollywood couple Bruce Willis and Demi Moore are still friendly, live
across the street from each other in Hailey and are admired locally for
their efforts to rejuvenate downtown businesses. 

What sets Tutor apart is that his lawsuit threatens to reignite a
long-simmering debate between pro-tourism forces that want development and
larger aircraft, and an anti-growth crowd that wants to keep the small-town
feel of the communities near Sun Valley. 

Many residents worry that if Tutor is allowed to land his jet, the airport
will have to accept other 737s.


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