"San Francisco lands Virgin; now can SFO land Virgin?"

Tuesday, June 22, 2004

San Francisco lands Virgin; now can SFO land Virgin?
By Stanford M. Horn 
The San Francisco (CA) Chronicle


Now that Virgin USA has turned thumbs up on San Francisco as the site of
its future hub, the city faces one more hurdle before it can lay
permanent claim to Virgin -- or, as recent experience has shown, any
other airline or passenger. 

That hurdle is an improved runway system that will allow planes and
passengers to arrive and leave on time. Without such runways, SFO has
turned in virtually the worst record in the world during the past four
years in terms of losing passengers, according to the Airports Council
International. It has dropped from 41 million annually to 29 million.
Airlines have either not come here at all (Jet Blue, Aloha), put their
Bay Area growth elsewhere (American, Mexicana) or totally moved out of
SFO (Southwest, in favor of developing an 8- million annual passenger
hub in Oakland instead). 

While SFO spent $75 million and five years studying runway alternatives
starting in the mid 1990s, it has little to show for the effort except
consultants' reports and consultants' bills. Those consultants studied
filling the bay with runways up to twice the size of Golden Gate Park,
spending upward of $2 billion and taking a decade to build the solution.


Consultants don't make money by recommending simple answers to problems
when they could recommend complex ones that require continuing studies.
So, while they studied dozens of "Cadillac" solutions, they never
considered a simple "Chevrolet" plan -- proffered by Bay Area
transportation wonks (myself included) -- that would add a runway to the
east of the main north/south runways. It would solve the problem in six
months, fill less than 1 percent of the bay mentioned in their reports
and cost less than 5 percent of the $2 billion. 

If the simple plan is pursued, each of the factions in the battle could
claim a victory. Environmentalists could claim that they eliminated 95
to 100 percent of the proposed bay fill; the activists who believe fish
welfare should come ahead of the Bay Area's economic health could claim
that the runway will now be foisted off in a brackish backwater that
fish rarely enter because it's only two feet deep and almost totally
surrounded by land; and the airlines and passengers who only want an
on-time airport in their lifetimes could claim they've finally achieved
the goal that users of other airports take for granted. 

The simple, new runway would: 

-- Allow two lanes of planes to approach SFO 4,300 feet apart during
cloudy weather, an FAA safety requirement. Currently, delays are caused
because runways are only 750 feet apart -- too close in cloudy
conditions -- forcing planes to land in single file and quickly backing
up the normal flow. 

-- Be longer than one of the existing main runways, allowing enough
length for virtually all aircraft. 

-- Be located mostly on existing level, open land, making paving a
simple job. 

-- Require crossing just 3,000 feet of brackish, almost-landlocked
water, most of which is only about two feet deep. Sometimes, at low
tide, there is almost no water there. Consultants' studies showed that
fish largely avoid that area. Either fill could be used, which would
leave 99.999 percent of the bay in its current condition, or a viaduct
or trestle similar to that used on the San Mateo Bridge could be used.
The San Mateo Bridge job was 10 times longer and in deep water and took
about four years to complete. By that yardstick, the core overwater
portion of the runway could be finished in less than six months working
regular hours. 

-- Pose no straight-ahead conflicts with San Bruno Mountain or with the
main runways in the rare event of a missed approach that requires
gaining altitude and going around the airport to try another landing. 

-- Pose no additional noise conflicts on the landing approach because
the runway is 3,400 feet farther out in the bay away from homes than the
existing runways. It poses no additional noise conflicts upon
departures, because the runway would be used almost exclusively for
landings. 

Furthermore, this plan has been evaluated as technically feasible by
airline pilots and civil-aviation authorities who reviewed it
informally. 

For years, anti-runway forces argued that a simple redistribution of
flights to other airports would relieve SFO enough to make them all
on-time. Now that almost 30 percent of SFO's passengers have indeed gone
elsewhere, it's still a fact that rain or fog can back arrivals up for
hours, screw up the national and international air transport system and
keep airlines and passengers from feeling confident about patronizing
SFO. The evidence: SFO now has zero nonstop flights to such formerly
well-served places as Ontario, Long Beach, Spokane, San Antonio,
Albuquerque, Nashville, Tampa, Hartford, Milan, Zurich, Moscow, Helsinki
and Papeete. Yet the delays are almost as serious as ever. 

What now? Airport management, the Airports Commission, the new city
administration and the economic development groups that successfully
landed Virgin must now turn their considerable spirit and energy to the
important other half of their task: landing Virgin and all the other
airlines and passengers who would return to SFO if the runways were
clear. The clear solution: adding a runway.


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