San Diego Airport (Lindbergh Field) - Will it ever move?

A southwest flight taking off on the single runway in downtown San Diego

Like a toxic waste dump, San Diegans  don’t want a new multi-runway international airport to replace the present location of Lindbergh Field – in their backyard anyway. In  There has been a lively debate on the need for a new airport since I’ve been living in San Diego (I moved here with my family in 1970). The argument is – the airport will reach capacity by…Pick one:

1. 2005 (oops…guess not)

2. 2020

3. 2044

4. Never

These are all estimates from paid consultants and groups from different sides of the issue.  Presumably the airport authority, a public entity which “owns” the airport and is governed by a 12-member board appointed by the Mayor of San Diego.  The board members are a group of mostly longtime San Diegans such as the former mayor of Coronado, city councilman from  Carlsbad, retired military leaders, etc.   Their mission is to “…plan for and provide air transportation services to the region with safe, effective facilities that exceed our customer expectations. We are committed to operating San Diego’s air transportation gateways in a manner that promotes the region’s prosperity and protects its quality of life ” After a long study, including many reports and analysis from consultants and other, they issued a recommendation to consider joint use of Miramar. There were a wide range of opinions then (as now) on the subject, but it keeps coming back to location (and cost, benefit, military impact, etc).  Nobody wants the airport to be in a location near them, but the alternative would be where there are few people, and such areas are too far away.  The conclusions of all analysis is that there are strains now, but it will keep getting worse and running out of capacity.

Which begs the question – what is “capacity”?  I have a coffee cup sitting next to me here that has a “capacity” of 8 fluid oz.  If you try to put 9 oz in it will overflow.  There are 18,500 parking spaces at QUALCOMM stadium. If you want to park after it’s filled, you will need to park near a local trolley station and take the trolley to the stadium. But what determines the capacity of the airport? If a 40 year old tries to put on the clothes he/she wore in the their 20s’ they  may find they’ve exceeded capacity in the waist or hips. But if you squeeze and hold your breath, you may still fit.  I think that’s what were talking about here: gradual weight gain.

San Diego International is the busiest single-runway commercial service airport in the United States, and second in the world after London Gatwick, with approximately 600 departures and arrivals carrying 50,000 passengers each day, and a total of 18.3 million passengers in 2007 (from wikipedia).  As San Diego’s population has grown by 50% in the past 25 years (from 2 million to 3 million) there remains a single runway limited capacity airport.

When the issue was debated as a rather toothless ballot measure – Prop A  in San Diego in 2006 – it was soundly defeated.  That measure would have approved the airport authority to “work toward obtaining 3,000 acres at MCAS Miramar by 2020 for a commercial airpot”.  However, what the voters defeated was not a referendum about the need for a new airport – eventually – but the specific location at a San Diego military air field (trivia: prior to being the Marine Corps air station, this was Naval Air station that was the model for the flight school in the Tom Cruise movie – Top Gun)

The the topics of issue appear to be location and location.  That is, rather than the funding – which would be the biggest issue if there was agreement on location – nobody wants it near them, and nobody wants it too far away.  Let’s face it, if you live anywhere from San Ysidro to Del Mar you’ve got an easy 20 min drive to the airport.  If you are a visitor to San Diego you’ve got a 5 min cab ride to downtown.

Ok – you agree that the current airport, due to it’s location, is too small to accomodate a city the size of San Diego.  But so what? Ever been to the Santa Barbara airport? it’s small.   And Santa Barbra’s population has gone from 300 to 400 thousand over the past 25 years.  Cities cannot outgrow their airport, but San Diego appears to be giving it a shot, and some argue the impact wis huge:

“Several economists have placed the negative economic impact at billions of dollars. It is difficult to understand numbers that large. But clearly, the negative impact will affect our economic growth, which in turn will reduce our income and standard of living. In the end, this means fewer high-paying jobs, lower tax revenues for local government and a threat to our quality of life.” (according to Dennis Burks, the retired general manager of SeaWorld San Diego who chairs ASAP 21, and John Chalker, a former Navy fighter pilot who is the managing director of LM Capital Group LLC )

The Airport Authority selected Miramar after looking at civilian sites as far away as Boulevard (seriously? Boulevard? source of the famous “where the hell is Boulevard” bumper sticker? 65 miles from San Diego??)  and the Imperial County desert. A board majority concluded the Marine Corps base was the best option to replace Lindbergh Field because of its central location.

Everybody who travels a lot knows that most big cities moved their airports “out of town” years ago.  Ever fly into the old Hong Kong airport? the one that was downtown like Lindbergh field? You could literally see people close enough hanging their laundry to see what brand they had.  To embark and disembark planes you frequently had to put on a “disposable rain suit” (basically a garbage bag) and walk accross the tarmac since there were so few gates.   Now they have a new airport   Heathrow to London? 1 hour drive in traffic (but the heathrow express solved that).   Inchon airport to Downtown Seoul? JFK to Manhattan? 15 miles.  Lindbergh field to downtown San Diego? 1 mile.

Hong Kong also had a single runway airport (as referenced above) that was replaced in 1998.  Chek Lap Kok Airport was designed as a replacement for the former Hong Kong International Airport (commonly known as Kai Tak Airport) originally built in 1925. Located in the densely built-up Kowloon City District with a single runway extending into Kowloon Bay, Kai Tak had only limited room for expansion to cope with steadily increasing air traffic. By the 1990s, Kai Tak had become one of the world’s busiest airports – it far exceeded its annual passenger and cargo design capacities, and one out of every three flights met delays, largely due to lack of space for aircraft, gates, and a second runway.^[5] In addition, noise mitigation measures restricted nighttime flights, as severe noise pollution (exceeding 105 dB(A) in Kowloon City) was estimated to adversely affect at least 340,000 people.^{[6][7] (wikipedia)}

When the city of Denver had similar airport issues with their former main aiportt – Stapleton International Airport – it too was replaced by the current DIA – one of the busiest airports in the U.S.  Estimates that have been done on the impact of more/bigger international flights through a city are huge and San Diego is missing out on those. The impact of a single regular daily flight from Asia on the region was estimated to be $150 Million annually.  So why not move  lindbergh field?

Back to that chronic “location” issue. Miramar, which is 17 miles from downtown, is already the site of a large airport, was considered the best option, but  – not surprisingly – not to the local residents.  The residents of north county San Diego in places like Encinitas and Carlsbad almost passed with 49% approving, but the residents in Santee -which is in the flight path – only 28% approved.  This is likely to become more polarizing in the future, unless and until the overcrowding demonstrates more clearly (as it did in Hong Kong) that it simply must be done, or, the people of the city can decide that they don’t want to grow any bigger.