ATTENTION

AIRFAIR MEETING  FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10

All meetings from now on will begin at 12:30 to allow the Executive Board to meet privately at !2:00. 

JWA "Sweetheart" Deal with Airlines?

Airport covered fees for big airlines; little guys had to pay
OC Register February 7th, 2012 by Doug Irving
 

John Wayne Airport fronted more than $200,000 in transportation fees for two airlines, even as it stunned other airport tenants with notices that they would have to pay on their own, records show.

Those fees were such a setback to the restaurants and shops in the airport’s new Terminal C that many delayed their openings and missed the Thanksgiving travel rush. Travelers who expected what the airport touted as “tasty new dining options” found instead a mostly empty food court.

Yet the airport itself covered the fees for the two airlines that serve the new terminal, Southwest and Frontier, records show. It shifted about $209,000 into a special account that collects the fees shortly before the terminal opened, records show, and then pulled the money back a few weeks later.

There’s no record that the airlines have since paid the fees themselves. Neither airline returned phone calls seeking comment, and a spokeswoman for the airport declined to comment, citing the possibility of litigation.

But County Supervisor Bill Campbell said the airlines have not paid the fees — “not to my knowledge, and I should know.”

The county oversees John Wayne Airport. Campbell also sits on the board of the Transportation Corridor Agencies, which collects the fees in question to help finance toll roads.

In a letter to the county, the toll road agencies questioned whether the airport had fronted the fees to the two airlines in time for them to get their building permits. Records show that the county signed off on the final permits for both airlines on the same November day that the airport posted the money.

Southwest is the busiest airline by far at John Wayne, accounting for nearly 40 percent of its annual departures and about 31 percent of its commercial-airline revenue last fiscal year. Frontier is one of the airport’s smallest airlines, accounting for less than 4 percent of its annual departures.

The airport paid just under $190,000 to cover the fees for Southwest, and about $19,000 to cover Frontier, records show. The money came from an airport construction fund; the airport retracted the payments a few weeks later.

The shops and restaurants in the new terminal, meanwhile, have paid their fees — in some cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars. The owner of Caterina’s, a small candy store in the terminal, broke down in tears at a recent hearing as she described having to cash out her son’s retirement savings to cover the surprise cost.

“I would not have bid (for a spot in the terminal) had I known,” said store owner Josie Rietkerk, whose fees came to nearly $29,000.

The fees in question help finance the San Joaquin (73) toll road, which runs close enough to the airport that new development there has been charged to help fund it. But the vendors who won spots in the new Terminal C said the airport did not fully disclose those fees before they signed their contracts.

Those vendors also disputed how the fees were calculated. Each shop and restaurant had to pay not only based on its own space, but also on a share of public space such as the concourse, waiting areas and baggage claim. The vendors challenged more than $660,000 in fees but lost their appeals last month.

The biggest of those vendors, HMS Host — which brought such featured eateries as Zov’s, Jerry’s Wood-Fired Dogs and an Anaheim Ducks-themed bar and grill to the new terminal — said in a statement that it “continues to be disappointed” by that decision. “However, we are communicating with County officials and we are hopeful that the County will come to a fair resolution on the matter.”

The county is still holding more than $150,000 in fees that it collected from airport vendors but has not yet turned over to the toll road, according to the Transportation Corridor Agencies. The head of the agencies sent a demand letter late last month, raising the possibility of legal action.

“I hope we can get this thing resolved without two agencies suing each other,” Campbell said.
Read the letter from the TCA here.

Airlines Are Retrenching, and Alternatives Are Slim

New York Times
December 26, 2011
By JOE SHARKEY

THE coming year will be a time of reckoning in business travel, as airlines reduce service at many airports and prospects fade for practical alternatives to flying, including the long-term promises of high-speed rail.

Consider the new realities of air travel. Competition is decreasing, fares are rising and airlines are adjusting routes (and charging extra fees) in ruthless calculations to extract the greatest possible revenue per mile flown.

Michael Boyd, the president of the consulting company Boyd Group International, sums up the phenomenon succinctly. “The cost of flying airplanes across the sky has eclipsed the ability to support it at many communities,” he said in a recent forecast. In 2012, he predicts, airlines will accelerate the mothballing of smaller 50-seat jets, the workhorses for connecting service between many midsize airports, and even some big ones.

Many airlines will continue shrinking overall capacity and trimming domestic routes in 2012, and the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing of AMR, the parent company of American Airlines, will merely exacerbate the situation. In 2012, American will "ground some planes and resize our network," the company’s chief executive, Thomas W. Horton, recently told employees.

In addition, John P. Heimlich, the chief economist of the trade group Airlines for America, said, “Capacity reduction is one of the steps the industry is taking to preserve profitability.”

Some business travelers are driving more often on some trips for which they would once fly. But what about trains? I got a lot of enthusiastic reader reaction a couple of weeks ago, after I wrote about taking a pleasant overnight trip in a cozy sleeper compartment on Amtrak’s Silver Star from Tampa to New York City. The fare was $480.80.

Measured by time and money, that’s not remotely competitive with flying, where the best one-way fare I found for the same trip was $301, on a flight that takes about two and a half hours, airport to airport.

On the other hand, the train fare included four meals in the diner car, as well as the overnight accommodations. For business travelers like Gary Brown, a consultant, such a rail option sometimes works.

Last year, Mr. Brown took trains round-trip from Minneapolis to Tampa, with stops in Chicago and Washington. “Yes, a long, long ride, but I loved every minute of it,” he said.

Mr. Brown said the rail alternative could make sense on itineraries where the train was convenient even if time-consuming. With cutbacks that often require more connecting flights, and given the need to arrive at airports well before departure time, Mr. Brown says he often has to fly the day before a business meeting and “stay overnight if I’m to give my customers a full day of my consulting.”

He added, “With Amtrak, I can often spend the night on the train instead of in a hotel room.”

Ah, what a joy it would be if the trains in this country actually went to all the places we need to go. Since we’re dreaming, let’s add that it would be such a joy if the trains went there a lot faster, too — as in high-speed rail, which is usually defined as about 150 miles an hour or more.

Remember, my pleasant train trip from Tampa to New York City took 26 hours. Google Maps informs me that driving the same 1,125-mile route would take 19 and a half hours. The train is obviously more comfortable, but the fact is that the automobile goes faster, all things considered.

Alas, I predict 2012 will also be the year when we come to the collective realization that for the foreseeable future we may be stuck with the air, train and car transportation system as it is, given economics and politics.

Prospects are dim for improving existing train travel, let alone expanding it into national networks of high-speed intercity routes.

A week after my overnight train trip, the House Transportation Committee held another hearing on the rapidly dimming prospects for domestic high-speed rail. It focused on the most ambitious major project that is still alive, the proposed high-speed system linking California cities from San Francisco to San Diego. At a cost now estimated at $98.5 billion, that project, still in the planning phase, is already 13 years behind schedule.

It also appears to be as dead as the Concorde supersonic jet. The project is a “disaster” that’s “imploding,” said John L. Mica, the committee chairman who, like many other planners, now thinks our best bet for intercity rail service is to improve it in the one place where it demonstrably already works well, the Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington.

John Wayne Airport: The runway was shut down until a private plane could be towed, officials said.

 

By ELYSSE JAMES / THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

A runway at John Wayne Airport has reopened after a plane endured a hard landing Saturday afternoon.

The runway reopened at 5:48 p.m. after the Beechcraft Baron was towed from the general-aviation runway, airport spokeswoman Jenny Wedge said.

The general-aviation runway was shut down after the private plane landed with its nose gear up, meaning its front wheel was not extended. The five people who were on board are safe, Wedge said.

The main runway that handles commercial airlines was not affected, Wedge said.

This is the second time this week that a private plane has had problems with its nose gear at JWA's short runway. On Thursday afternoon, the nose gear of a Cessna 172 collapsed as the plane landed. Two people were on board but were not injured.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7949 or ejames@ocregister.com