Trish wrote on Aug 18, 2006 7:14 AM:Give me a break! Carlsbad, no way. There's enough congestion on Palomar Airport Rd. My suggestion is Camp Pendelton. Passengers can take the Coaster from downtown San Diego or Amtrak. Passengers from LA/OC can take the Metrolink. A win win situation! Just fix the 76 between the 15 and the 5 and we're on our way!

Howiek wrote on Aug 18, 2006 9:01 AM:Sigh! This Carson dude needs to get back on his meds! Just exactly where and how are going to lengthen Palomar? I’m sure Carlsbad residents will be waiting with open arms for the first 747 to zoom overhead breaking every window in their homes! And of course we can certainly add a second runway to Lindbergh—Uh huh, sure we can, just as soon as you take out a lot of downtown San Diego! Here’s the concept for a second runway at Lindbergh Field: http://www.san.org/documents/assp/Concept_SDIA.pdf Mr. Carlson needs to remember that the airlines dictate where they land NOT the airports! To think otherwise is being a total ignorant fool. Folks, the Marines are sandbagging us! Read-up and get informed for a change.

Richard wrote on Aug 18, 2006 9:46 AM:If they can get the president to save the cross on Mt Soledad maybe we can get the president and congress to close the base so we can finally get a decent airport in San Diego.

El Guero wrote on Aug 18, 2006 10:57 AM:Richard - If you want a decent airport, maybe you should move to Denver.

Common Sense wrote on Aug 18, 2006 11:46 AM:Well said Richard! ... Additionally, maybe Ihrig should stay at home then, if she does not want to incur travel issues, else come up with a reasonable solution. In other words... get involved or quit whining. And by the way, the FAA will most likely have hours of operation at Miramar, as they currently do at Lindbergh. San Diego will still grow, no matter how much we would like to keep our small town feel. 20+ years of attempting to find a solution is long enough. Here is a viable solution (Miramar) and let's move forward in life.

Duh wrote on Aug 18, 2006 12:05 PM:If you want existing jobs to stay in town, maybe you should support looking for a new airport site.

Jay wrote on Aug 18, 2006 2:12 PM:Trains people. High speed trains! That's the solution for both inter and intra-regional transport. Air travel has become a white elephant. It's time consuming, a major cause of pollution and inefficient except on long hauls. That industry receives HUGE tax subsidies. With the kind of money we are spending on it we could get some REAL rail transport and save flight for when we really need it.

El Guero wrote on Aug 18, 2006 2:32 PM:Existing jobs? Like what? Pave over what little of paradise we have left for the sake of "growth" and "jobs"? I've heard that snake oil sales pitch before and it just makes life here worse. But if the rest of you want to swallow that propaganda to make yourselves feel progressive, go ahead. I'm voing NO.

Tom wrote on Aug 18, 2006 4:09 PM:The Marines have camp Penalton here with lots of land to spare. Oh and in the mean time lets not forget North Island. Oh and in the myths of my sarcasim we should exchange SAN for Miramar

Yawn wrote on Aug 18, 2006 4:23 PM: My experiences tell me, neither lindbergh getting enhanced, miramar getting converted, or palomar getting longer runways will happen. The status quo will prevail in the end. That means we will need to change the way we fly, If you look to lindgergh, most of the flights are San Jose, Oakland, Phoenix, Las Vegas, basically local. Lots of companies popping up these days offering small plane services to exactly these locations. If these types of flights are encouraged, or if they are the only ones allowed to grow. The problem can maybe be solved with existing airports. Or solved by more smaller airports with 10-20 seat planes. These types of airports are generally easier to accept by the local community. Whatever is done does not have to be what is best for the existing airline business, but rather what is best for San Diego. Maybe a new type of dominant airline company will emerge catering nationally to small airports and small planes. Does not sound bad to me.

Ron wrote on Aug 18, 2006 4:28 PM:I saw Prof Carson speak last night. He pointed out that the number of annual operations (takeoffs/landings) at Lindberg has been at about the same level for 10 years (even while the number of passengers has increased, to about 18M). He also showed that Gatwick airport in London handles 25M+ passengers with about the same number of operations (and it can't handle 747s either). Later, a representative of the SDCRAA tried to dispute these points by misrepresenting what Carson had said. It made me skeptical of the information presented by the SDCRAA. Also, it was stated more than once that a new airport would operate 24/7.

Chuck wrote on Aug 18, 2006 4:54 PM:I love when people in Carlsbad (which is growing by leaps and bounds) say "not in my backyard", but then try to shove it Miramar's backyard. Expanding Palomar would effect a lot less people than Miramar. For my money, there is nothing wrong with Lindbergh Field, and the Marines won't give up Miramar. You want to keep building, North County, then build your own airport.

Voice of Reason wrote on Aug 21, 2006 12:23 PM:Lindbergh isn't Gatwick. Gatwick has a 10,900' runway and no terrain and an 8,415' runwy with no terrain. It's also three times the size of Lindbergh at 1,600 acres and as stated has TWO runways. He also claimed he does work for Boeing. With Universities like MIT and George Washington specializing in Aviation, why exactly would they turn to this no growth idiot for advice. UCSD of all places, is so well known for their aviation expertise. Besides, everythng he says (larger aircraft) flies in the face of everything Boeing says on smaller aircraft and new markets. One of two things. Boeing is wasting it's time spending billions on building smaller aircraft like the 787, or Carson is a liar. I think the later to be true. Also, Lindbergh operations are not flat. You have to break down the operations and you'll see that commercial operations have offset other operations, but those operations have now leveled and overall operations are begining to rise as they did in the 80's at about 1.5% per year. Just as the airport projected.

Richard wrote on Aug 24, 2006 11:20 PM:There are clearly lots strongly held beliefs on the San Diego airport issue and seemingly here a lot of hostility on the part of some. There is also some blatant misrepresentation going on that should be corrected in order that there can be an informed debate. With respect to Voice of Reason’s claim that Gatwick is a two runway airport, this comes as a surprise to the British Airport Authority that runs Gatwick (www.gatwickairport.com) On their website they clearly state: "Gatwick is the busiest single-runway airport in the world, the second largest airport in the UK and the sixth busiest international airport in the world." There is a second maintenance/ emergency runway at Gatwick which is ordinarily a taxiway. It is opened up as a runway when work is being done on the regular runway at Gatwick since Gatwick is open 24 hours a day. Gatwick’s single runway and its accompanying taxiway are never open simultaneously as runways. With respect to the 787, it is a wide-body aircraft designed to replace the 767 which is the largest plane flying into either Gatwick or Lindbergh on a regular basis. Flight operations statistics from the FAA can be found here: http://www.apo.data.faa.gov/main/taf.asp . In 1996, there were 243,595 total operations (of these 155,012 were commercial carriers and 63,803 were commuter planes). In 2005, the preliminary reported numbers are 225,448 total operations (of these 150,582 were commercial carriers and 53,487 were commuter planes). Thus not only are total flight operations lower at Lindbergh lower than a decade ago but flight operations by both commercial carriers (regular jets) and commuter planes are both lower than a decade ago. Again this is a direct contradiction to the assertion made by Voice of Reason. With respect to Carlsbad-Palomar airport, the San Diego Regional Airport Authority showed that it was possible build two 12,000 foot runways at that location separated by 4,300 feet and have about a third of the noise impacts of building at Miramar. (http://www.san.org/documents/planning/assp/tier_one/3.01_McClellan-Palomar%20Airport%20Area.pdf) Carlsbad-Palomar was ruled out as the site for San Diego’s main airport because of the need to move too much dirt for the second runway. The existing runway is relative straightforward to extend but it gets progressively more expensive the longer you make it. Adding 1000 feet to the current 4897 foot runway is an entire different issue than extending it to 12,000 feet and is quite feasible. I have never proposed landing 747s at Carlsbad-Palomar. The most that will be needed at Carlsbad-Palomar is a modest expansion of existing service that will allow the use of small regular jets to reach the major hub of one or more carriers. If this were done travel times of north county residents to an airport would be reduced and studies have shown that a secondary airport in a region tends to reduce airfares at the main airport in a region benefiting all travelers. Under, pessimistic, but plausible, demand forecasts there is no need for expansion at Carlsbad. On the issue of jobs, there can be no job loss if all of the demand for air cargo and passengers is satisfied at the current rates/fares at Lindbergh. One of the major problems with Miramar, though, is that the cost of air cargo and ticket prices will have to go up substantially to pay for building what would be the country’s most expensive airport ever built. This high cost will by itself considerably reduce passenger demand and hence have the adverse impact on jobs that Duh fears. The key question then is whether there are options that will get San Diego the air capacity it needs at a lower cost than Miramar. The San Diego Port District which ran Lindbergh before the Airport Authority was looking at several options (http://www.san.org/documents/assp/dec_doc/Concept_F_ppt.pdf ) that were less grandiose and more feasible than one shown in the link provided by Howiek. The difficulty with these concepts was that they would not double the capacity of Lindbergh, although they substantially expanded it, nor provide the 12,000 foot runway the Airport Authority wanted even though no passenger plane likely to fly into San Diego needs a runway this long. A major expansion of Lindbergh with respect to terminal gates perhaps a runway along the lines that were being considered by the Port District and some minor expansion of Carlsbad-Palomar represents a much lower cost way of satisfying San Diego’s needs.

Voice of Reason wrote on Aug 31, 2006 10:15 AM:One last thing Richard. The numbers you quote on operations are total operations for the “terminal area”, not scheduled operations. All that has occurred is a reduction in terminal overflights over time due to an airspace redesign that took place in 1998 to optimize Lindbergh’s terminal airspace by reducing clutter. The decrease in count also reflects the affects of and efforty to reduce congestion from 243,000 operations in Lindbergh’s terminal area (TAF = Terminal Area Forecast). If they are at 210,00 today and the airport is adding 10 gates that's about 98 new terminal area operations a day given typical industry gate utilization, assuming no missed approaches. Roughly 35,000 new operations a year. It is absurd to claim that with the addition of 10 gates and four commuter gates in your suggested 10 year period from 1995 to 2005 that scheduled operations did not increase over that same period. If scheduled operations were down, the airport wouldn't be adding 10 more gates by 2010. Do not misrepresent data or facts to make your case.

Pilot wrote on Nov 19, 2006 8:23 PM:Carlsbad Airport is already busy airport, the reason we need a airport is so we have 747s coming from other countries so get tourist coming directly here cause we dont want japan flights to land in LAX we want to land here in san diego, i know about 4 people who have travel overseas in the last month and they didnt leave from san diego they left from lax who would wanna drive up to LAX, we need airport here to be able to handle airplanes with max weight that can travel far.

Voice of Reason wrote on Nov 9, 2007 11:24 AM:On a more simplistic note for the casual observers Richard, your inability to understand the context of the 787 being a "smaller" aircraft (in relation to the size of aircraft previosuly required to operate such long haul routes) shows your complete lack of ability to converse within the aviation community. Aviation expert? Laughable.