--- In BATN@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "9/14 SF Examiner" <batn@...> wrote: Published Friday, September 14, 2007, by the San Francisco Examiner Comment LAX shows a way to fix SFO delays By Stanford M. Horn SAN FRANCISCO -- LAX this summer opened a new 11,000-foot runway. It will carry more traffic than any SFO runway. Construction took less than nine months. It cost less than $200 million. Therein lies a lesson for SFO. Until now, fixing SFO's chronic arrival delay troubles envisioned a decade of construction and perhaps billions of dollars in costs. A 7,500-foot runway at SFO, well offset from the current landing runways, would virtually end the problem -- we already have two 11,000-foot or longer runways. Prorating Los Angeles' experience, the cost and time line to fix SFO's arrival delays with a 7,500-foot runway should be less than seven months and less than $140 million. But where to put the new runway without disturbing the fish and mudflats adjacent to the airport and their militant guardians? A previously unstudied, undiscussed location may exist. First, it should be noted that SFO is about to have its most successful new-business year in recent memory, with the arrival of JetBlue, Southwest, Virgin America, Aer Lingus and others yet to be announced. In the past, JetBlue and Southwest have said publicly that SFO's delays were responsible for keeping them away. And other carriers simply added no new service here while they grew elsewhere. It would be ironic and embarrassing if runway-configuration delays -- unattended to in decades -- forced the same decisions again. They needn't. A potential path for a new SFO runway that would allow simultaneous landings in cloudy weather -- the elusive silver bullet that would virtually end most delays -- exists, entirely on existing land, not bay fill. As such, even the Bay's environmentalists might finally have a runway-improvement plan they could support. The result would be a new runway as long as some existing ones at SFO, capable of handling all aircraft types. * It would meet all federal requirements for horizontal separation from other runways. * It would have more clear safety overrun space than six of the eight current landing patterns (the four runways can each be used in a reverse pattern); the nearest obstruction, the low-rise car rental center, is more than five football fields beyond the end of the runway. * All arrivals would be over water, farther away from creating noise in homes; in fact, it would replace some arrivals that fly over Peninsula cities. As to East Bay cities, the distance to SFO is great enough and the altitude high enough that there should be no added landing-mode noise there, either; Oakland-bound traffic is much closer, lower, noisier and more frequent. * The two runways used for landings would not cross each other. * An almost straight-ahead go-round route through the San Bruno Gap would have no more issues than the current major runways. * With well more than federally mandated vertical separation from planes headed elsewhere, it would not interfere with traffic at other airports. * And it could be up and running sooner rather than later, at the lowest cost and time line yet envisioned for SFO runways, even if some of our soil may have different challenges than those found in Los Angeles. The hitherto-unconsidered right-of-way would go through acreage now occupied by the four-decade-old midfield hangar known as the Superbay. The Superbay -- which brings in less than 1 percent of the airport's annual revenue -- would require re-establishment as a more modern and functional facility elsewhere on airport property. Boosting the idea's timeliness, the future of Superbay was recently thrown into question when United, its principal tenant, announced that it may sell its maintenance division. A new operator might well want to move some operations to a less expensive domestic or offshore location and wouldn't even want the Superbay. The revenue benefit achieved by this year's new flights -- if they don't get withdrawn because the new airlines again find SFO's delays too onerous and expensive, would be far more than the Superbay's rental income, at least 600 percent more. Carrying an average of 120 passengers per flight, the 45 additional daily flights will bring in at least 5,400 passengers daily. They each pay a $4.50 passenger facility charge and they buy an average of $6.07 worth of goods and services from concessionaires. Planes pay an average landing fee of $738. That's revenue of $90,288 per day, or $32,955,120 per year. During the six years that SFO lost out on the 45 flights and 5,400 daily passengers who never came to the airport, it lost potential revenue of $197.7 million ... $57.7 million more than the potential cost of building the new runway. In addition to making economic and environmental sense, it's also important to note that SFO's swarms of new passengers and long- suffering existing users could finally feel confident of arriving and leaving on time. Currently, more than 6 million SFO passengers arrive late, many missing connections and appointments. New carriers could feel confident of starting service. And existing airlines could feel confident of providing additional service. It's a classic win-win- win. Stanford M. Horn writes on transportation and development issues. [BATN: See also: As traffic, carriers increase, SFO to revamp, reopen old terminal http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BATN/message/36121 Opinion: Another Stanford Horn SFO runway opinion piece (27 Apr 2006) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BATN/message/30322 Opinion: Horn pushes yet another SFO runway "fix" (21 Oct 2004) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BATN/message/21030 Opinion: Simple new SFO runway is cheap and easy (22 Jun 2004) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BATN/message/18953 Comment: Virgin @ SFO means party over for OAK, SJC (15 Jun 2004) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BATN/message/18764 We here at BATN are particularly fond of the non-runway whackiness of Comment: Extend dual-gauge BART on existing tracks (3 Dec 2003) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BATN/message/15220 Opinion: Low-cost fix for SFO runway congestion (21 Oct 2003) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BATN/message/14630 ] --- End forwarded message --- <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> If you wish to unsubscribe from the AIRLINE List, please send an E-mail to: "listserv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx". 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