"Philadelphia Airport Booms; Neighbors Protest Runway Plans"

Saturday, October 15, 2005

Philadelphia Airport Booms; Neighbors Protest Runway Plans 
Bloomberg


Philadelphia International Airport, expanding faster than any U.S. airport
except New York's John F. Kennedy, may have its growth plans trimmed by
protests from residents in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. 

``I go to sleep to the roar of airplanes flying over my house and I wake up
to the same roar,'' said Edward Vanderslice, 67, a retired machinist from
Wilmington, Delaware. ``The airport's lack of planning shouldn't destroy my
quality of life.'' 

Philadelphia International is extending one of its four runways and may
build others to handle a surge in overseas flights and the arrival of
Southwest Airlines Co. The city-owned airport, serving an area with about 6
million residents, ranks last in the U.S. in on-time departures, with 31
percent delayed this year, according to the Bureau of Transportation
Statistics. 

``There is no way they are going to sustain 17 percent growth,'' said Mike
Boyd, a consultant who heads Boyd Group in Evergreen, Colorado. ``That
physical area in which Philadelphia can potentially expand is constrained.
The future of the airport lies in coming up with ways to better use the
facility.'' 

Hemmed in by the Delaware River, Interstate 95, a rail line and a wildlife
refuge, the 65-year-old airport sits on about 2,300 acres of land, less than
half the area taken up by JFK and 7 percent of the size of Denver
International, the nation's largest airport. 

Screaming Neighbors 

The Federal Aviation Administration said it will decide by early next year
on a broader expansion plan. One proposal would require few changes. A
second would add a runway extending into the river. The third calls for
construction of four new runways and rebuilding five of six terminals, at an
unspecified cost. 

Neighbors who live beneath the airport's flight path say it's too big
already. PHL Citizens Aviation Watch, a homeowners group, is threatening to
sue the city after complaining for more than two years about noise and air
pollution. The group has urged lawmakers to hold up FAA funding to pressure
the agency to limit expansion. 

``The noise gets so bad that if I want to stand on my driveway and talk to
my neighbor 50 feet away, we have to scream at each other,'' said Steve
Donato, 37, a leader of PHL Citizens Aviation Watch and technical director
for a Philadelphia museum. ``That's not the way I want to live my life.'' 

The FAA in April approved a $36 million project to lengthen one of
Philadelphia's runways to 6,500 feet, long enough to land the Boeing Co.
737s flown by Southwest. The number of planes flying over north Wilmington
will probably double as a result, Donato said. 

More Passengers 

``They fly so low I can read the numbers on the planes,'' Amy Pollock, 43,
who lives in Ardencroft, Delaware, said at a Sept. 21 hearing that drew
about 70 residents, including Vanderslice. Planes come at under 2,000 feet,
below the ceiling set by the FAA, rattling her windows, she said. 

U.S. air travel has recovered from a plunge following the hijackings of
Sept. 11, 2001, when terrorists flew commercial jets into the World Trade
Center in New York and the Pentagon near Washington. Philadelphia's airport
contributes $14 billion a year and 34,000 jobs to the region's economy,
Eclat Consulting, based in Reston, Virginia, said in August. 

Its passenger count has risen 21 percent this year after jumping 16 percent
last year to 28.5 million, according to Geneva-based Airports Council
International. The number of overseas travelers reached 4.1 million, four
times as many as a decade earlier. 

``Based on our numbers the trends will continue,'' airport spokesman Mark
Pesce said. 

Delays Worsen 

The airport added 100 daily departures in the past year, pushing the total
to about 700. Tempe, Arizona-based US Airways accounts for 472 and
Dallas-based Southwest offers 53, up from 14 when it arrived in May 2001. 

Delays have worsened as well. Almost a third of the airport's flights are
late, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics said. Philadelphia ranked 30th
in arrivals that were at least 15 minutes late and 33rd in departures among
the 33 largest U.S. airports in the eight months through August. 

The airport's size and location, seven miles south of Philadelphia's
downtown, ``really prohibits your ability to grow,'' said David Castelveter,
a spokesman for US Airways Group Inc. Philadelphia is the carrier's
second-largest hub after Charlotte, North Carolina. 

US Airways, the No. 7 U.S. airline, exited bankruptcy last month. Delta Air
Lines Inc. and Northwest Airlines Corp. filed for Chapter 11 protection on
Sept. 14, hurt by higher costs for labor and fuel and competition from
discounters like Southwest. 

New Airport? 

Southwest has driven down one-way fares to U.S. cities from Philadelphia by
a quarter, airport officials estimate. New York- area residents, unable to
fly Southwest from JFK, La Guardia or Newark, were traveling two hours to
Philadelphia to do so, the New York Times reported in March. 

``We'll add service there next year and hopefully, by the end of this year,
we'll get additional gates,'' said Whitney Eichinger, a Southwest
spokeswoman. Southwest leases six of the airport's 120 gates. US Airways
uses 88. 

Some expansion opponents suggest that Philadelphia bring planes in along the
Delaware River or divert traffic to regional airports such as Lehigh
International near Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, or Atlantic City, New Jersey. 

Vanderslice had a more radical solution: ``We need another airport.''


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