Santa Monica Airport Archives

Jetwhine

The FAA Lost Me at "Innovative Solution"

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I was really starting to like the FAA the past few years, what with the Part 23 rewrite and passage if 3rd Class Medical reform. I saw them as more of a kinder, gentler agency … more let’s all work together for the greater good and that sort of thing … until a couple of weekends ago at least. That’s when the FAA performed one of those end runs around everyone, slipping a settlement on Santa Monica airport mess in under everyone’s radar on a Saturday morning.

The FAA’s deal with Santa Monica allows the city to chop up the airport’s single runway as soon as the ink’s dry on the necessary paperwork. That should shrink Runway 03/21 from 4,973 feet to something closer to 3,500, just short enough to make it useless for most jets and even some large chartered turboprops.

I suppose the agency was thinking the good news inside this “innovative solution” as the administrator called it, was that the airport will remain open for business until 2028, if the city hasn’t already driven everyone away by then of course.

But seriously … they see this deal as innovative?

Let me quote Administrator Michael Huerta. “Mutual cooperation between the FAA and the city enabled us to reach this innovative solution, which resolves longstanding legal and regulatory disputes. This is a fair resolution for all concerned because it strikes an appropriate balance between the public’s interest in making local decisions about land use practices and its interests in safe and efficient aviation services.”

A fair resolution? I’m struggling with this one. Sure municipalities ought to have a say in local airport operations, but what about this solution strikes anyone as innovative or fair? [Read more…] about The FAA Lost Me at “Innovative Solution”

Don’t Let Santa Monica Airport Become Another Meigs Field

In the pre-dawn darkness of March 31, 2003, former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley’s wrecking crews laid siege to Meigs Field, a single 3900-foot runway airport on the western shore of Lake Michigan near the city’s downtown. As the sun rose that morning, the damage became clear, large “Xs” had been carved into the runway by city backhoes. Meigs Field was no more.

An atmosphere of outrage quickly spread throughout the industry for the loss of the little airport, a place made famous around the world when it was chosen as the opening screen for Microsoft’s popular Flight Simulator software.

The AOPA’s president at the time, Phil Boyer said, “”We are absolutely shocked and dismayed. Mayor Daley has no honor and his word has no value. The sneaky way he did this shows that he knows it was wrong.” There was no advance warning of the city’s move, not even to the FAA.

A Typhoon Passes

Yesterday, Pia Bergqvist shared a post on Facebook that detailed the shutdown of Santa Monica airport’s icon restaurant, the Typhoon, a place that’s been a fixture at SMO for 25 years. The restaurant’s closure simply highlights the latest of the dirty tactics the Santa Monica’s City Council is using to destroy the airport located just north of LAX, a place many in local government have come to think of as an obstacle to urban progress, not to mention a safety hazard.

In order to drive businesses like this from Santa Monica airport, the city nearly tripled the Typhoon’s rent. Other long time tenants like Atlantic Aviation and American Flyers already received eviction notices, with American Flyers filing a Part 16 complaint with the FAA along the way.

What makes the mess at SMO different from what we experienced here in Chicago 13 years ago, is that this time the FAA knows perfectly well what’s happening. The question is whether they’ll take any real non-paperwork action before SMO’s runway’s also destroyed.

The folks at the restaurant explained the city’s squeeze job pretty accurately. “In some quarters, this sort of activity would be seen as a deplorable abuse of municipal power, but in Santa Monica, it is becoming business-as-usual. It’s just too exhausting and disheartening to continue to throw good money after bad into this never ending shell-game of political brinksmanship.”

In a final farewell, the folks that run the Typhoon plan to keep the place open until just after the presidential election November 8. [Read more…] about Don’t Let Santa Monica Airport Become Another Meigs Field