CAA: GA News, "Oracle's Ellison moves jet out of San Jose, California airport"

["Stephen Irwin" <stepheni@xxxxxxxxx>]

Sunday, March 10, 2002

Oracle's Ellison moves jet out of S.J.
IT'S LATEST TWIST IN FIGHT OVER CURFEW
By John Woolfolk
The San Jose (CA) Mercury News


After a victory in his four-year fight over San Jose's airport curfew,
Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison has quietly moved his private jet
to an airfield in Stockton.

A ruling last year allowed Ellison to fly his Gulfstream V in and out of
Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport during late-night curfew
hours. But the San Jose Jet Center later decided the luxurious $38
million jet was too big and taking up too much room to stay.

``We're at capacity,'' said Dan Ryan, president of the jet center, a
private company that provides hangars and services for 45 private planes
at the San Jose airport. ``We're having difficulty meeting demand simply
because we have no space.''

The billionaire software executive initially suspected San Jose was
pulling strings to have him evicted from the airport in retaliation for
challenging the curfew.

``You're always a little suspicious when you fight like you did and
win,'' said Edward P. Davis Jr., who represents Wing and a Prayer, the
company Ellison formed to own and operate his jet. ``We did quite a bit
of investigating. The city satisfied us that there was no relationship
between the lease issue and Larry contesting the curfew.''

But the jet center deal was getting so complicated, Davis said, that
Ellison moved his jet to Stockton Metropolitan Airport a few months ago.
No one could say exactly when.

Ironically, the move is likely to double the jet's flights at San Jose
because the pilot now must fly the plane back and forth between Stockton
and the Bay Area, airport officials said.

No one else has sought a curfew exemption at San Jose for a private
plane. But Ellison isn't giving up his exemption, because he still uses
the airport.

In the past six months, he flew four times during curfew at San Jose: on
Aug. 26, Sept. 9, Dec. 13, and Jan. 21, said airport spokesman Steve
Luckenbach. The airport doesn't keep tabs on daytime flights.

``By no means will he walk away from it,'' Davis said. ``He's very much
interested in making sure the ground he covered remains solid.''

City officials had complained that Ellison's plane violated the
airport's curfew at least a dozen times since June 1998.

The curfew, in place since 1984, restricts flights between 11:30 p.m.
and 6:30 a.m. for planes with maximum take-off weights above 75,000
pounds in an effort to limit nighttime noise.

The restriction grounds commercial jetliners during those hours but
allows most small private planes to fly throughout the night.

With a maximum takeoff weight of 90,500 pounds, Ellison's jet was too
big to escape the curfew. But he argued the restriction was unfair
because modern technology makes his jet quieter than older, lighter
planes unaffected by the curfew. The plane's BMW Rolls Royce BR 710
turbofans are ``the lightest, quietest, cleanest, most fuel efficient
engines available,'' Gulfstream says.

Ellison sued two years ago, saying the ``wacky'' and ``absurd'' curfew
law should either be tossed out or that his plane should get an
exemption.

City officials concede the weight-based curfew may be outdated.

``With modern technology, the correlation between weight and noise isn't
what it was,'' said San Jose City Attorney Rick Doyle.

But under Federal Aviation Administration policy, the city could lose
its grandfathered curfew if it alters the rules, Doyle said. Loss of the
curfew could halt the airport's $1.5 billion expansion because
environmental studies assumed few late-night flights. The city fears
other large planes would follow suit if exceptions are granted.

In a victory for Ellison last July, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel
stopped just short of invalidating the curfew and ordered the city to
exempt his plane. Ellison and the city have since been working on a plan
to formalize an exemption and settle the case.

``The idea is to carve out some kind of exemption that preserves the
curfew but doesn't open the floodgates to other aircraft, commercial
aircraft in particular,'' Doyle said.

The Stockton airport doesn't have a curfew, and director Barry
Rondinella said San Jose's loss is their gain. The airport has seen more
and more private jet owners moving their planes from the Bay Area,
citing lower costs and less traffic.

``We're happy about it -- we'd be foolish not to be,'' Rondinella said.
``It's just good for the economy here. And an airplane like Mr.
Ellison's ain't too shabby.''


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