=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SF Gate. The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=3D/news/archive/2002/05/24/f= inancial0922EDT0041.DTL ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday, May 24, 2002 (AP) Latest battle of Midway centers on airport ANDY PASZTOR, The Wall Street Journal (05-24) 06:22 PDT (AP) -- Specks of U.S. territory in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the Midway Islands are known best for their World War II role as a jumping-off point for U.S. forces beginning to turn the tide against Japan. Now the islands are emerging from another battle -- albeit one far less momentous -- over who will maintain and man Midway's isolated airport. And in an odd twist, this current fracas involves some of the same soldiers who fought on Midway six decades ago. Over the past few years, Boeing Co. has quietly subsidized a private company, Midway Phoenix Corp., to run Hendersen Field -- Midway's single, pitted strip -- and to keep rudimentary emergency services running, primarily as a selling point to airlines using Boeing's two-engine 777 for trans-Pacific routes that can last 14 hours or more. Under Federal Aviation Administration rules, such twin-engine jets aren't allowed to stray as far from potential places to put down as four-engine jets, many of them made by Boeing archrival Airbus. But three weeks ago Midway Phoenix pulled out, and the FAA shut the airport down. The company had invested $15 million in facilities designed to attract tourists -- a stylish gourmet restaurant, and a deep-sea fishing center among the amenities -- but had clashed repeatedly with the island's administrator, the Fish and Wildlife Service of the U.S. Department of Interior, over the company's proposals to open up more beaches (closed to protect seals and other animals) and to encourage small cruise ships to anchor in the lagoon. The Fish and Wildlife Service "kept restricting what we could do," says Bob Tracey, an executive at Midway Phoenix, based in Cartersville, Ga. "It was supposed to be a model government-company relationship. But as it evolved, we couldn't see our way clear to make any money." An Interior spokesman counters that the company knew precisely what restrictions it faced in a wildlife sanctuary, adding that the government went out of its way to be flexible and agreed that Midway Phoenix wouldn't have to pay nearly $2 million in disputed bills. In pulling out, Midway Phoenix took with it around 150 assorted laborers who operated not only the airport but also the water, electric and sewage systems. In making its decision to close the airport, the FAA determined that the federal conservation officials remaining on the island weren't capable of running Hendersen, its tower or its fire and rescue teams. The FAA action put Midway off-limits to all carriers, some of which have had to shift their routes to meet FAA landing proximity guidelines, and it left some elderly veterans of the Battle of Midway in the lurch. The veterans and their supporters have spent the past 18 months planning for an early June ceremony on Midway commemorating their victory there in 1942. Sponsors of the event were told the FAA wouldn't permit their chartered Boeing 737 to make the 2,000 nautical mile round trip between the island and Hawaii, unless it can refuel mid-trip, which is to say on Midway. "This is not like flying from Dallas to Kansas City," notes Craig Roberts, a congressional staffer backing the veterans. The finger-pointing is vigorous. Jim D'Angelo, president of the foundation organizing the ceremony, blames the Fish and Wildlife Service for much of the trouble. From the start, he says, the agency "basically didn't have any interest" in honoring vets seeking to return to Midway. But the cash-strapped service, which normally has fewer than two dozen staffers and contractors on the island, argues that it's not in the airport business. The FAA says it is working hard to come up with a fix, and lately all sides seem optimistic a compromise will be reached. FAA officials have declared Hendersen Field "vital to aviation safety" but, as elsewhere, refuse to actually operate an airport. Boeing, which provided some $5 million to Midway Phoenix over the years, has always described Midway as a central element in its campaign to get carriers to adopt the 777. It now says that the field's closing doesn't pose any imminent safety challenges, but it suggests that airlines with a big Trans-Pacific presence pitch in to keep the field operating. "All members of the aviation community should contribute to the solution," says Chet Ekstrand, the Boeing point man on Midway issues. But the airlines worry that if they start chipping in at Midway, they will set an expensive precedent world-wide. Midway, so remote that its islands weren't discovered by sailors until 1859, only really became a part of the rest in the world in the 1930s when Pan American Airway's pioneering Flying Clipper seaplanes started touching down there on their way to the Far East. From the 1940s through 1997, the uninhabited three-square-mile island remained essentially off-limits to civilians as a ward of the U.S. military, which used it to listen in on Russian subs and to fuel planes shuttling troops and materiel during the Korean and Vietnam wars. After that, the Department of Interior stepped in with the primary task of protecting Midway's wildlife, particularly the famed Laysan Albatross, better know as the gooney bird. More than one million gooney birds call Midway home for about six months of the year. With their ungainly walk and 7-foot wingspan, the birds choke Midway's roads and paths and have to be manually carried off the airstrip. That being the case, aircraft takeoffs and landings are normally banned during the daylight hours of "Gooney Season." But even with the precautions, veteran Aloha Airlines pilot Greg Croydon said during a trip years ago, "It's not a question of whether you will take a bird in the engine, but when." =20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2002 AP