"An 'Airport System': California's Bay Area airports need to lend a wing"

["Stephen Irwin" <stepheni@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Area needs to lend a wing
Bay Area's major airports close to reaching capacity
By Meera Pal
The Tri-Valley (CA) Herald


Given space and terrain constraints around the Bay Area's major airports,
the region will have to work together and explore better use of smaller or
underused airfields, including Livermore's, to handle the predicted influx
of air travelers in the next 20 years. 

Failure to do so may result in lost revenue and lost business for San Jose,
Oakland and San Francisco international airports, according to a report
released by the Federal Aviation Administration last week. 

"It comes as no real surprise," said Keith Freitas, director of airports for
Contra Costa County. "We knew San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose are near
capacity." 

General aviation airports, such as those in Livermore, Concord and Byron,
are smaller, public-use airports that accommodate smaller aircraft and fewer
than 2,500 passengers annually. 

But given the size and location of most municipal airports, shouldering the
burden of increasing airport capacity may be harder for local residents to
bear. 

In Livermore, where the airport has been the epicenter of battles between
city officials and residents in Livermore and Pleasanton who live near the
airport, any proposed growth as part of a regional effort will have to pass
local opposition. 

Livermore Municipal Airport, owned and operated by the city, is about three
miles northwest of the city and sits on 643 acres. It operates two parallel
runways. 

Ross Bayer, Livermore's airport operations supervisor said, "We're already
considered reliever airports. ... We've always been here to relieve the
larger airports." Recently, airport and city officials received complaints
after the FAA approved the groundwork for Livermore to lease existing space
to a private operator that will build and manage 65 hangars and take over
the airport's fuel concessions. 

"There are always community issues that all airports are concerned with,"
Bayer said. 

But with predicted exponential growth in air travel and the fact that San
Jose, Oakland and San Francisco airports' are hemmed in by urban
development, smaller municipal airports may need to take on an even larger
role. 

A multiagency, Bay Area regional airport planning group is investigating
ideas for addressing capacity needs. Among the strategies discussed are
technological tools to increase capacity (specifically at SFO during bad
weather) and even charging airlines to land during specific time slots, said
Doug Kimsey, planning director with the Metropolitan Transportation
Commission, one of three agencies overseeing the regional effort. 

Despite a $300 million expansion project at Oakland International Airport
that will add five gates and another terminal with another 10 to 20 gates,
Oakland will need to add capacity in the next decade, the FAA study found. 

Oakland airport spokeswoman Rosemary Barnes said there are no current plans
to add a runway. 

Such capacity, she said, could be soaked up by the smaller airports in
Livermore and Concord. 

"It is so costly and there are so many environmental challenges to overcome
when adding runways," Barnes said. "Instead of leaving it to the big
airports to address capacity needs, why can't we bring in the smaller
airports? They have more potential to grow with their existing
infrastructure and runways." 

Kimsey said the multiagency regional planning group is considering how to
use general aviation airports to take some of the demand off the three
regional airports. 

"One of the major existing solutions are general aviation airports," said
Leander Hauri, Livermore Municipal Airport manager and the general aviation
representative of the regional committee. 

The committee has looked at possibly introducing limited commercial service
at municipal airports, such as Concord and Santa Rosa, Hauri said. 

Buchanan Field in Concord, with five runways, did have limited commercial
service in the early 1990s. 

"The reality is that someday we will see commercial service again," Freitas
said. "Especially if we can relieve some of that aircraft from the bigger
airports." 

Freitas added that it would not mean commercial service to New York or
Europe, but perhaps, shorter hops to Los Angeles and San Diego. 

Hauri said it is not likely that commercial traffic would come to Livermore.
He sees Livermore's role as taking a greater share of the area's general
aviation traffic. 

"Every jet we can absorb for them is a help to the system," he said.

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