'
Airport Director Outlines Mgm't Plan After Council Majority (6-3) Authorizes Work To Determine Feasibility, Financial or Otherwise, Of Customs Facility (Int'l Flights) at LB Airport: Hire Firms To Do Report, Bring to Council In Approx. Jan-Feb. '16
LBReport.com
News
Airport Director Outlines Mgm't Plan After Council Majority (6-3) Authorizes Work To Determine Feasibility, Financial or Otherwise, Of Customs Facility (Int'l Flights) at LB Airport: Issue RFQ, Hire Firms To Do Report, Bring to Council In Approx. Jan-Feb. '16
LBREPORT.com is reader and advertiser supported. Support independent news in LB similar to the way people support NPR and PBS stations. We're not non-profit so it's not tax deductible but $49.95 (less than an annual dollar a week) helps keep us online.
(July 19, 2015) -- LB Airport/city management have outlined how they intend to proceed after a City Council majority voted 6-3 (Supernaw, Austin, Uranga dissenting) on July 7 to authorize work to determine the feasibility, financial or otherwise, of allowing a federal customs facility at LB Airport [allowing international flights, which couldn't be restricted to a single passenger or cargo operator.]
During his regularly scheduled monthly report at the July 16 meeting of LB's Airport Advisory Commission, LB Airport Director Bryant Francis indicated that staff is working to develop the components for an RFQ [request for qualifications] that it expects to release by some time in September. "Due to the complexity of the work, it's likely that several firms will ultimately be involved," Mr. Francis stated and said the steps are expected to include, but are not necessarily limited to:
Facility definition
Facility planning and design
Demand and traffic forecasts
Financial pro forma and funding plan
Airport capacity plan (airside/landside)
Legal analysis of the noise ordinance
Impact analysis of unlimited flights and neighborhood mitigation plan
Economic impact to local and regional economy
Security risk assessment
General aviation forecast focusing on protected international activity
[Scroll down for further.]
"There may be a couple of others that may be recommended by firms that specialize in this type of work," Mr. Francis said. City management's agendizing memo recommend, and the Council motion as made was broad enough to allow, retaining "industry experts" [management's agendizing memo term] to perform the work. Councilwoman Mungo (who made the prevailing substitute-substitute motion enabling management's action) declined to allow a friendly amendment by Councilman Austin that would have brought management's proposed firms back to the Council for voted approval...meaning management now has a free hand to hire whomever it wishes. (Mungo accepted four of five other additions offered by Austin which came from some of his constituents who assumed the item would pass; Austin himself remained opposed.)
Airport Director Francis indicated that management's process will take approximately six months, with a report likely returning to the City Council in January or February 2016.
[Scroll down for further.]
Advertisement
Advertisement
In response to a question inquiring about two previous studies performed for the Airport related to a federal customs facility -- conducted without Council voted authority and hidden from the public until obtained under a Public records Act request by LBREPORT.com -- Mr. Francis said one was an Economic Impact Study "that was never finalized."
[Airport Dir. Francis extemporaneous colloquy] It talked about the impact on the direct and indirect impact on the proposed addition of a federal inspection facility...[another was a cost study completed in 2013 using primarily 2012 data]...and 2012 was the peak year for the Airport's activity, and so the data that was used in that 2013 was primarily from 2012, our best year ever. 2015 we're down over 20% in terms of our passenger activity levels. There were also assumptions made in that initial study that there would be a level of three daily international flights operated by JetBlue, that there would be roughly 150,000 increased passenger activity, but at the time there was a higher level of domestic flying that JetBlue was operating here, and so the assumption was that they would need to, in essence, forego some of their domestic flying in favor of international flying, and so the incremental increase of the 150,000 would be 100,000, because you're just trading 50,000 domestic for 50,000 international passengers. Today, that situation is very different. We are aware that JetBlue is, as we discussed here several times, that there are lower levels of activity in terms of flight activity operated by JetBlue, so there is more slot availability within the 32 slots that JetBlue is currently allocated to operate whether domestically or internationally, and so from that standpoint, the baseline would be different in this study. Also, I believe that this study will be more comprehensive than what was done in 2013 and will also take into account several additional areas that were required by City Council, so it will be a several month long process, including the RFQ part of the process that will actually allow us to ultimately select the firm or firms to conduct the work, and it will be several months worth of work will be done. We will hold a couple of community meetings and then we'll go back to the Council sometime early next year with the results of those collective levels of research.
[Scroll down for further.]
Advertisement
Advertisement
The substitute-substitute motion by Mungo (seconded by Lowenthal) enabling the above process requires holding at least two "community meetings" in areas impacted...although it's unclear to what effect; a Council majority voted to proceed with the feasibility work despite July 7 public testimony over two-to-one opposed (with half the speakers in support from JetBlue Airways.)
If the City were to allow such a federal inspection facility at the Airport, it couldn't be limited to JetBlue, effectively opening up the Airport to an entire category of international operators -- cargo and passenger -- that might seek flight slots not currently available (most taken by JetBlue) under LB's Airport ordinance. JetBlue has repeatedly stated that it seeks to operate within the terms of the Airport ordinance. The ordinance protects Long Beach from unlimited daily flights at all hours of the day and night on all runways.
