Airport alternative must stay on radar

Here’s a number for residents of both Newport Beach and Costa Mesa to

ponder: 761,268.

For those who missed it, that’s how many passengers passed through

John Wayne Airport in May. It represents an 8.6% increase compared to

a year earlier, as well as a continued, steady increase in passenger

levels since March 2002. For the first four months of this year, the

increase in passengers has flown up to 14.4%.

“Now it’s not a trend; it’s the reality of John Wayne Airport,”

airport spokesman Justin McCusker told the Daily Pilot.

It also is the doom and gloom long heard from the mouths of the

most ardent “pro-airport” forces in Orange County. They were the

ones, most will recall vividly enough, who agitated for the desperate

need for an airport at the closed El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

That need clearly still exists. The question is: Are those

pro-airport forces still out there?

Their central raison d’etre -- an airport at El Toro -- is gone.

Supervisor Jim Silva, once again, made that clear enough this week

when he said, “That was the only game in town, the El Toro airport,

and that went down in defeat.”

But residents of Newport-Mesa can’t afford to have their watchdogs

quiet down and retreat with tails tucked between their legs. Instead,

these groups -- most notable the Airport Working Group, which

recently settled its remaining legal differences with the city of

Irvine over the El Toro issue -- need to sink their teeth into a new

fight.

What’s the new answer for an alternative to rising passenger

levels at John Wayne? Is it transportation to a larger airport in

Ontario? Is it a north San Diego County airport? Certainly, the men

and women who have dedicated innumerable hours to this issue during

the past decade can think of even more, important questions -- and

maybe some useful answers.

City leaders, also, should not be abdicating this fight. What is

the status of Newport Beach taking control of John Wayne? Are these

numbers added incentive for city leaders to turn up the jets on the

county? Can they think of other solutions that would alleviate the

strain on John Wayne?

The facts, after all, are clear. Orange County continues to

prosper and will continue to require air traffic to fuel the

economy’s engine, whether via business travel or tourist traffic to

the area. El Toro is not going to be part of the solution. But a

solution, of some sort, is not an option. It is a necessity.