Says Commercial Traffic Has Dipped, Private Aircraft Taking
Over
The Palm Beach International Airport
in Florida has had to fight for its existence as a civilian airport
more than once. After opening in 1936 as a single runway with only
a small administration building, the airport was twice made a
military base, during World War II and the Korean conflict.
Finally, in 1960, the 2000-acre site was officially taken over by
Palm Beach County.
Perhaps this history of feistiness is part of the reason for the
airport's success in expansion battles with NIMBYs over the past 20
years. In an editorial, The Palm Beach Post observes that the
airport has never lost one of these battles -- gaining a new
terminal, a runway extension and its own interchange along
I-95.
The paper says the expansion has brought the buyout and
elimination of a small town, two neighborhoods and a private
school, and suggests the airport's next battle is one it should
lose.
At issue is a plan to extend the airport's smallest runway, 9R/27L,
from 3,000 feet to at least 8,000 feet long, adding capacity for
airlines currently limited to the 10,000-foot 9L/27R. The Post says
that will require sacrificing hundreds of homes, and criticizes the
airport for using unrealistic growth projections to justify the
project.
"Despite 20 years of ambitious forecasts, the airport is not
growing," the Post asserts in its editorial. "Overall traffic is
down 20 percent since 1990. And unlike most larger airports, most
of the traffic at PBIA -- a whopping 64 percent -- is not
commercial flights but smaller, private general aviation
planes."
One of the NIMBYs in this case is a big one -- Donald Trump's
Mar-a-Lago, which lies under the flight path for the parallel
runways. Trump attorney Neal McAliley has lobbied the FAA to
consider peak-hour pricing to reduce congestion. The Post says the
FAA has dismissed the idea because PBIA doesn't meet the criteria
to be considered congested, while in the same report suggesting
that the runway is viable because the airport is congested.
Like many similar battles elsewhere, it's hard to know whose
numbers to believe. The Post's editorial says traffic at the
airport peaked in 1990 and has been declining, but doesn't
elaborate. The airport's numbers show passenger emplanements and
deplanements dipping through the mid-1990s, then rising to 6.9
million in 2007, up almost 22 percent from 1990 levels.
As the FAA's two-year review process continues, the NIMBYs are
digging in. Trump's lawyers are still on the case. West Palm
Beach's Vedado neighborhood is under the flight path, and is
applying for status as a national historic district, which would
bog down the environmental impact evaluation process. The editorial
board of the Palm Beach Post predicts recent airline capacity
shrinkage will be long-term, and promotes an image of business jets
and other GA aircraft which use the airport as toys of the
rich.
Time will tell whether organized, well-funded NIMBYs with a
sympathetic local newspaper can prevail against an airport which
has a winning track record against the Pentagon.