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Depending on whom you ask, the Palo Alto Airport is either an underperforming money vacuum or a valuable and potentially profitable community gem.
Those were the two conclusions of, respectively, the Santa Clara County and the Palo Alto Airport Working Group, a coalition of city officials, environmentalist group leaders, pilots and other local stakeholders. Now, city officials are considering spending $105,000 on a new analysis that may settle the debate and, in doing so, determine the airport’s future.
The question over the airport’s profitability isn’t purely academic. The county currently operates the airport under a 50-year lease with the city. The agreement is set to expire in 2017 and county officials indicated two years ago that they have no interest in continuing operating the airport once the contract is up. A county report noted that the airport has historically operated at a deficit and is “severely hampered from physical, environmental and policy standpoints.” Between 1967 — when the lease was agreed to — and 2006, the county’s investment in the airport exceeded net revenue by $668,000, the report stated.
The city sees things differently. Last year, working group released its own report, describing the airport as an “essential community asset” with the “economic potential to be self-sustaining.” The report also recommended that the city negotiate an early takeover of the airport from the county.
The new study — which the council’s Policy and Services Committee voted 3-1 to recommend on Nov. 18 — would help city officials determine who should operate the airport, said Councilmember Yoriko Kishimoto, who chairs the committee. It would also help determine whether the facility should exist at all.
“This would develop a business plan and help the city basically develop its options for whether it makes sense to take over the airport,” Kishimoto said, “because there are still questions outstanding about whether it’s financially feasible to keep it operating.”
Both Kishimoto and Vice Mayor Peter Drekmeier — the lone voice of dissent at the Nov. 18 vote — said they would consider other uses for the 104 acres of land the airport occupies. Drekmeier said he voted against recommending the new operational analysis because he thinks city officials should first discuss whether the city should have an airport at all. The council will likely consider the recommendation during one of its December meetings.
“It would be good to have a discussion beyond whether we can make the airport profitable or not,” Drekmeier said. “There’s a great opportunity out there for environmental innovation. The land could be used for waste reduction, for generating renewable energy or maybe for an incubator for start-up green-technology companies.”
But Peter Carpenter, a former pilot and member of the Joint Community Relations Committee for the Palo Alto Airport and of the working group, said he was confident the new study would only underscore the airport’s importance and financial viability. The city’s restrictions on major airport expansions — outlined in the city’s Baylands Master Plan and viewed as an obstacle by the county — only ensure the airport will remain a good neighbor, Carpenter said.
“The fact that larger planes can’t come into Palo Alto is consistent with what the community wants,” Carpenter said. “When you look at the statistics, we have the lowest number of noise complaints of any airport in the Bay Area.”
“I’m quite comfortable the airport is viable without any expansions,” he added.
About 50 percent of the airport’s use is devoted to aviation training, while the rest is split between recreational and business-related flights, Carpenter said.
Councilmember Sid Espinosa, who also sits on the Policy and Services Committee, said this mix of uses makes the airport an important Palo Alto resource and one the city likely won’t want to lose.
But Espinosa also noted that the question of how best to run the facility requires much more data than city officials currently have at their disposal. He hopes the new study by Kentucky-based R.A. Wiedemann & Associates will help city officials make the final determination about the airport’s fate.
“I think we’re at a point where we would be remiss if we didn’t consider all options for the space,” Espinosa said. “But I can’t imagine, at this point, the circumstances where we wouldn’t want to keep a vibrant, healthy airport in our city.”
“There’s a great opportunity out there for environmental innovation. The land could be used for waste reduction, for generating renewable energy…” Sounds great, lets save the earth by destroying a perfectly good airport. Hmmmmm.
Anyone have a link to the working group studies?
My sense is that the number of Palo Alto airport users is very small, especially in relation to the space it uses. There certainly doesn’t seem to be any benefit beyond the users’ enjoyment – no material economic benefit, for instance. So why is having our own airport important?
Palo Alto appears to have done nothing to make the airport more a commercial hit to the City. There are no hotels, restaurants, viewing areas, or any other facility to either attract airport users to spend money in the vicinity or PA residents to have any interest in the airport.
I feel strongly that an innovative team could find many ways to use the airport as an asset which at present there appears to be a lack. Generating more use for the airport may or may not be viable, it always appears to be busy with take offs and landings, but these people who use the airport are invisible to the economy of the City apart from the airport fees of which the City may not get anything. Like the neighboring golf course, this part of the City has nothing to attract those that use the facilities apart from a couple of car dealerships and now only one restaurant (Mings). There must be a potential for creating better usage of some of the unused office space and creating more potential for City revenues.
It should be easy to find out who uses the airport and how much and how much they pay and if the city gets any of the money.
I suspect that most of the planes are owned by people form outside of the city and or by business people for business use.
I would like to learn to fly, but I have been told that the airport in San Jose has a better school and is less expensive.
If the City runs the airport it should bring in a lot of revenue to the city. This would come from the larger planes used by outsiders and business people/planes in Palo Alto also.
We don’t need to subsidize profit making users of the airport. Nor people from outside of the city for any use.
The users must pay enought that the city makes a reasonable profit and the land involved is substantial.
If the closed city dump can’t be used for many sports playing fields maybe the airport land could be used.
When the city dump is closed the composting operation should or must remain there.
How much revenue do we receive from the parks and libraries? How about the streets?
This is redolent of the same puritanical abstemiousness that saw our yacht harbor destroyed. The Yacht harbor was condemned as a rich man’s plaything even though the majority of the boats were El Toros. Loss of the harbor diminished Palo Alto, and the loss of the airport would diminish us more. There is one “asset” for which I would suggest another , higher use – send the entire council back to private lives.
I don’t resent the airport and I don’t think it should make money – you are right, Walter, it is a recreational amenity. But the acres per local user seems like an good metric to look at for the golf course and the airport. I imagine when they were built, we had ample unused space; today much less so.
Anyone who criticizes the airport in any way should be rounded up and detained for “questioning”.
Jim,
Palo Alto already has much unused land at the old dump site (now called Byxbee park). As the current dump is closed it, too, will be put to no good use, as it expands Byxbee. Many more people use the airport and golf course than they do Byxbee. On a per acre use basis, Byxbee comes in last place.
Byxbee needs to be shut down and turned into playing fields and recycling center and other possible human uses.
I would agree with closing the Palo Alto airport if Moffett were to become a general aviation/cargo/commuter airport and assume the PA Airport debt obligation. Airport land could then be divided between an expanded golf course, a rejuvenated yacht harbor and a direct connection from Dumbarton to Oregon boulevard.
Sounds just like Westminster, Maryland
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO GET A GRIP ON THE FAA’S SPENDING! OUR TAXES HELP TO PAY FOR THESE RIDICULOUS PROJECTS SUCH AS EXPANSIONS OF AIRPORTS THAT ARE NOTHING BUT MONEY PITS! (don’t try to tell me our taxes are not involved either — our county’s portion of the cost comes from OUR TAXES)
There is an incredibly good reason to keep the airport: we got an airport and Menlo Park and Cupertino and Santa Clara and Los Altos and Woodside and Atherton and lots of other towns don’t. Naa, naa, naa, na, naa, naa.
Citizen-
The county airports are run using a fund generated from user fees. Your tax dollars do not go to the airport. You need to get a grip.
http://countyairports.org/administration.htm
Walter. My memory is that the “Yacht” harbor required continual dredging – not covered by user fees. If the airport makes money, why does Santa Clara want out of the operation. The only thing those two facilities diminish is our General Fund pocketbook.
They both are recreational amenities for a handful of people – many of whom live outside of Palo Alto.
The money paid for dirt hauled in to cover the dump dwarfed the cost of dredging, which had provided the covering dirt. A case can be made that the dredging was made necessary by diversion of historic flow. Airports are not just recreational amenities, they are a transportation facility for general aviation which includes business and professional usage. There was a time after Loma Prieta when general aviation was the only reliable transportation. Both the Yacht Harbor and the Airport are facilities, like libraries, tennis courts and soccer fields used by only a small percentage of the population and, often, by non-residents. It was recreation boaters who blew the whistle on raw sewage spills and propelled the cleanup of the South Bay.
I suspect the County wants out because they envision more revenue from other uses for them to piss away on their social schemes. Their treatment of Reid-Hillview is a shame.
Good points Walter. But when the dump is closed, we’ll still have to dredge the harbor – which I understand was well over $100,000 per dredge – and dispose of the spoils.
There always should be a cost/benefit analysis made for a use of city funds. I don’t think soccer and tennis fields compare in expense to an airport and harbor. Libraries, yes.
Palo Alto airport is home to over 400 airplanes and it is one of the busiest general aviation airports (especially for its miniscule runway size). In addition to “pleasure flights” which some people seem to resent, the airport provides easy access for business, charity, law enforcement, and medical transportation (e.g., for long-distance transportation of passengers to/from Stanford Hospital). Since many other cities around the country are able to operate profitable airports, one consideration should be whether to hand off airport operations to a private entity as opposed to the County (which, by definition, is in the business of spending money, not making money). As another commenter noted, such a busy airport deserves better facilities (e.g., a nicer terminal/FBO, a real restaurant, and runway improvements) which should go a long way towards making the airport a profitable enterprise.
Here is the web site that has most of the reference material regarding the Palo Alto Airport:
http://www.zachary.com/s/pao_jcrc
That links down not seem to work, Peter.
Pilot, with 2 other airports within a reasonable drive, I’m not that compelled by the convenience of having one in the Baylands; I doubt it materially improves our business or healthcare climate. But it is fair that we might want it as an amenity. So I come back to – how many local users per acre vs. alternative uses? Do you know?
It is not a slam dunk that the highest usages should get the land – there are factors such as having a diversity of offerings. But if it is truly a very small number of users for a large chunk of land, then that is an important fact we should consider.
airport users- you are killing yourselves, the same way harley owners are- people over a vast area are exposed to your equipment that is far too loud, and you do not self regulate by flying at or above the suggested altitude near the airport, instead relying on that lame chesnut of safety 1st. You acn be safe and quiet, yet you choose not to.
I resent the noise. Clearly, the airport can never serve more than a small fraction of the population. Libraries serve thousands of PA residents. Even if it’s cost neutral, it’s a nuisance to me.
“There is an incredibly good reason to keep the airport: we got an airport and Menlo Park and Cupertino and Santa Clara and Los Altos and Woodside and Atherton and lots of other towns don’t. Naa, naa, naa, na, naa, naa.”
This is incredibly naive. The fact is that it is resident pilots of Woodside, Atherton, etc. who should be saying Naa, naa, naa to we gullible Palo Alto suckers who subsidize the expensive hobbies of the rich in neighboring towns.
The last survey I saw indicated that less than a third of Palo Alto airport users were residents of Palo Alto. The rest were wealthy people with enough time on their hands and money to buy planes to keep there, or take lessons going for upwards of $100/hr.
To the degree that we take less than the market value of the lease payments for the airport, or keep it in this economically under-performing use, we’re subsidizing the users.
Personally, I resent paying tax money to pay for joy-riding rich boys to buzz my neighborhood with their noisy toys.
Time to close up this subsidized playground for Atherton millionaires.
Palo Alto airport has around 250,000 operations per year on 104 acres.
Foothills Park has around 150,000 visitors per year on 1400 acres.
Community Gardens have around 50 users per acre per year
Let’s not get into another divide-and-conquer debate. The airport is an amenity, just like parks, playing fields, children’s theater, golf, tennis, lawn bowling, community gardens, libraries, Avenidas, permit parking ramps downtown, Cubberley studios and the art center. We can have a healthy debate about who uses each of these amenities. We can establish a community goal that all our amenities must be cost-neutral. We can trot out analysis showing how much each of these amenities contribute to the local economy.
I find this discussion a bit depressing since the airport is something I use and would miss if it were gone. If Foothills park closed we’d still have thousands of acres of open space still within easy biking distance. If the golf course closed we’d still have Shoreline and Sunnyvale within a short drive. If – heaven forbid – the libraries closed, we’d have Mountain View, Menlo Park and Los Altos. If the airport closed we’d have a long drive to Reid Hillview, South County or Hayward*. Not the end of the world, but unnecessary.
(*Just to head off a debate, there are technical reasons why San Carlos isn’t a good alternative.)
Thanks AW for that data. Where do those numbers come from? What is an “operation” in terms of an airport? That does seems like a large number – almost 700 a day. How does that translate to number of users?
Unique numbers (visitors/users) would be useful too. If a small number of individuals use a large resource intensively, that may not be the best choice for a public facility vs a resource that many use.
If we closed all our “loss making” facilities, Palo Alto would have very few services.
The variety of opportunities for enjoyment in Palo Alto make Palo Alto what it is and why people seek to come here.
An airport operation is a takeoff or landing, see page 2-5 of this Santa Clara county document:
http://www.countyairports.org/docs/MasterPlan/PAO/Chap2.pdf
It would be great if we measured unique visitors rather than total visits for all our amenities. Even though there are only 500 aircraft based here, the flying clubs are very active and have thousands of members.
“The airport is an amenity, just like parks, playing fields, children’s theater, golf, tennis, lawn bowling, community gardens, libraries, Avenidas, permit parking ramps downtown, Cubberley studios and the art center. “
I guess I have difficulty equating municipal subsidies for a rich person’s hobby, most of which is directed towards non-residents to most of these more common city ammenities.
The fact is that Palo Alto, like most cities, faces huge budget challenges. We’ll be forced to make choices about what to subsidize, and what must be sacrificed in order to generate more revenue.
The airport seems at first blush to be a (or the) prime candidate for cut backs….You guys flying over my house at 6am every Saturday morning and at 11pm every Sunday night will have to do it on your own dime if there’s any justice in the world.
AW, thank you for that informative link.
Can you clarify this math – if we assume a 10 hour “day” (reasonable?) and about 600 takeoffs/landings every day (200,000 ops / 365 ), that means there is a takeoff or landing every minute of every hour during the 10 hour day, every day of the year. Is that right – a plane takes off or lands once a minute from, say 8am till 6pm?
If that’s right, it seems like it is indeed a pretty busy place.
Paul:
I couldn’t agree with you more that we need to make choices. I’d advocate we prioritize what’s distinctive to us and not just duplicate what’s down the road a few miles.
Others may feel strongly that we emphasize local amenities that duplicate what every other town on the Peninsula has. What’s important is to end up with what we want and not piecemeal the process.
Me Too,
I have seen busy periods with an operation per minute, but I don’t believe there’s a takeoff or landing every minute of every day. The tower is open from 7am to 9pm if that helps. I’ll report back if I find more information.
Rich man’s hobby? I’ve been flying 25 years (as a renter) and most Palo Altans have more money parked in their driveway than I’ve spent total. Rich is a relative measure in this neighborhood, and we all have our own priorities. Count me in for about 50 operations annually at KPAO (PA airport), always compliant with our noise-abatement procedures, and never in the wee hours. I guess that makes me 1/5000th of the air traffic. That’s on par with my 30 visits per year to Foothills Park. I doubt I’ve averaged one visit per year to the libraries, and even fewer contacts with our Police Department, but that’s getting off-topic.
Just offering myself as a data point and one of those people who shows up whenever our airport gets in someone else’s crosshairs.
In keeping with the grandiose folly known as “Destination Palo Alto”, a pipe dream to make P.A. a world-class tourist destination in the same league as London, Paris and New York City, such a tourist magnet will naturally need a major airport. Thus, I hereby propose that the existing Palo Alto airport be shut down and that the City of Palo Alto acquire Moffett Field. I’m sure you could easily land 767s on the runways at Moffett Field with little or no modification, and there is plenty of land for the construction of parking structures and hotels. Call it “Palo Alto International Airport”. Just think, not one, not two, not three, but FOUR major “international” airports within a radius of a few miles.
Makes as much sense as “Destination Palo Alto.
If anyone with an open mind wants to read up on what General Aviation has to offer, please visit http://www.gaservingamerica.com/.
I have a pilots license (certificate officially), but am not an active pilot. You would be surprised at how much commerce, education, disaster relief, charity, angel flight, and industry depend on local airports.
My first flight instructor is now a commercial pilot. Without the option of being a local, non-military instructor, the only option for him to pursue his dream would have been to go into the military. At the same time, my young son is an airplane fanatic, and we often go out to the airport to let him watch the airplanes. There are regular “young eagles” events where experienced pilots bring our youth up for short, safe flights, to inspire their interest in aviation, the sciences, and their dreams.
As for industry, their are generally large numbers of support jobs related to local airports. There are charter operations with local (non flying) staff, pilots, instructors, maintenance crews at several levels (A&P mechanics, fuel line workers working their way up by washing / fueling airplanes), FBO stores (they sell things like navigation charts and some of them rent out cars to visitors or aircraft for locals).
Then there are the angel flights. Active, experienced members of the community volunteer to fly people with serious illnesses to (usually highly specialized) medical care across the state or country.
Then there are the relief flights. After hurricane katrina, much of the early aid was flown in on small aircraft. Yes, planes with less than 200 horsepower.
After 9/11, commercial and general aviation was all but shut-down, with one exception: Organ and blood transfer flights flown out of, you guessed it, general aviation airports.
Finally, it is truely not a “rich man’s sport”, certainly no more than golf, and no more than an independently wealthy hiker on what is for most of us a work-week afternoon. Learning to fly was one of the most wonderful, spiritual, grounding, and impactful periods in my life (ok, prior to becoming a parent). And the cost for getting my license and flying a bit after that, was about the same as two months of mortgage payments + property tax.
The airport is a significant and irreplaceable asset to our community. Please look at it with an open mind.
“Finally, it is truly not a “rich man’s sport”, certainly no more than golf, and no more than an independently wealthy hiker on what is for most of us a work-week afternoon. Learning to fly was one of the most wonderful, spiritual, grounding, and impactful periods in my life (ok, prior to becoming a parent). “
“Rich” in the context of Palo Alto and Atherton, may be a relative concept. But it should be obvious that flying isn’t a common man’s diversion. I see lots of Aircraft Owner’s and Pilots decals on Jaguars and Porsches…but not many on Hondas and Toyotas.
The difference between the Noah and the hiker he talks about is that the hiker doesn’t justify the subsidy he gets pursuing “spiritual, grounding impactful” activities with sanctimonious twaddle about the wonderful things he and his flying compatriots do for the world while pursuing their quasi-religious celebrations on the public’s dollars.
The hiker doesn’t buzz my neighborhood with loud machines on weekend mornings either – metaphorically sneering at the fact that I’m paying for him to annoy me.
The subsidized airport is a playpen for rich dilettantes. Close it now.
Pauli,
If it makes you feel any better the airport is not using any of your tax money. Check out the Santa Clara County web site.
http://www.sccgov.org/portal/site/rda/agencychp?path=%2Fv7%2FRoads%20%26%20Airports%20Department%20(DEP)%2FAirport%20Information
Me Too: airport operations include taxiing. A typical flight involves taxiing from parking to the runway, takeoff, landing and taxi to parking. Still 5x the users per acre as Foothills Park. (we don’t know from the stats how many FHP visitors are guests of residents, so let’s not start the non-resident bashing yet).
and Who Dat: if you can get Mountain View and Sunnyvale to buy into your plan, let’s go!
I got my pilot’s license at Palo Alto airport. I mention that just to give an indication of where I’m coming from. Now I live under one of the approaches to Reid-Hillview airport, and often watch airplanes going overhead. If I didn’t like it I’d move someplace else. Pauli should move somewhere that doesn’t have planes going overhead. To shut down the airport just for his/her convenience is ridiculous.
I hate the small minded buzzing of those who play the wealth card or the race card to justify their pettiness and misanthropy.
“If it makes you feel any better the airport is not using any of your tax money. Check out the Santa Clara County web site.”
In fact the airport is subsidized in myriad ways by taxpayers. First, the city owned land on which the airport sits is a valuable asset that is leased at (I believe) a dollar a year. The difference between the market rate is a significant subsidy directly to the airport. In these lean budget times, we can’t afford frills like this for the convenience and cash savings of weekend joyriding for Atherton flyboys. In addition, it is well documented that the general aviation fraternity is subsidized through generous federal support (through the FAA and otherwise).
Jim’s suggestion that those who don’t like the incessant small plane noise emanating from the Palo Alto airport should move is a ripe demonstration of the overweening narcissism of the elite tiny minority population small plane pilots who imagine that their “spiritual” development trumps the rights of the residents of towns they fly over to peaceful existence.
There are plenty of uses for the airport land that make more financial and environmental sense than its current use as a subsidized fraternity house for Atherton joystick jocks who aren’t getting enough satisfaction out of their Ferrari’s on weekends. Now is the time to close that land and use it for something for the residents of our town.
If we had multiple airports you could count me in for consolidating them. Since we only have one…
Thanks AW. That is still a decent amount of activity – about 50,000 flights a year, about 135 a day. So the question comes back to who actually uses it – how many unique residents?
One could guess-timate – the average pilot goes once a month (total guess) – so 12 times/year – which equates to 4200 individuals. Non-resident pilots – half perhaps? – so 2100 residents. They have guests and passengers too, of course – 1 or 2 per trip? – so at 1.5 guests, same ratio of res to non-res, total annual unique res usage = 5200. At 100 acres, that would be 52 unique resident users per acre per year.
On the other side of the equation, most (all?) of FHP does not have a practical alternative use – you’d have a hard time putting a playing field there, for instance, based on topography and access issues. Plus there are many who value the idea of open space even if they don’t personally use it; I would guess less so for our airport.
I’ve only seen one “overweening, narcissistic” poster to this thread, and it isn’t me. I really doubt that there are that many planes going over Old Palo Alto. “Incessant” means non-stop, constant. If you have to exaggerate to make your point, then your argument is bogus and you’re lost the debate. Planes approaching PAO from the west have to avoid Moffett Field and San Carlos airport so they go between them. Many of them fly over Atherton. I think most small plane pilots are aware of the noise issue and try to fly over less congested areas when possible. I know I did that when I flew out of PAO. You can fly over the bay, but sometimes that isn’t practical or possible.
Well if it isn’t “practical” for joy-riding air jockies to avoid flying over residential neighborhoods disturbing the peace of families who live there, then I guess it’s OK. After all, we wouldn’t want practical considerations to interfere with vainglorious pilots’ communion with the cosmos.
The self-absorption and sense of entitlement of rich people who pilot airplanes is remarkable.
Pauli, you just have to get in the last word, don’t you?
“Pauli, you just have to get in the last word, don’t you?”
Self parody is really difficult for most people. But some do it so naturally and effortlessly.
Without directly going tit-for-tat with some of the hilarious accusations by another poster, let me fill you in on my, and my flight instructor’s financial and auto situations (back when I was an active pilot).
I was driving an 8 year old, base model Toyota Camry that I purchased used with an existing dent. It was a good deal for me for solid, reliable transportation, and cost me $6k. I was just finished paying off my student loans (went to a public UC university), and decided that once done with that, I would pursue one of my dreams (flight).
My flight instructor was on the verge of being broke, using all of his earnings to pay for shared rent and maintenance on his very old, breaking-down car. On one occasion we had to cancel an instructional flight as he called to let me know his car has “engine failiure”.
Since then, I’ve worked at an aviation related company and met many pilots of all walks of life. There was my team-mate, another software engineer, I think he drove a Subaru. There was another pilot who drove an old honda insight hybrid.
Sorry to feed the trolls, I had to 🙂
Now on to the noise issue, which is probably the only thing the vehement airport detractors here really care about. If you close the PAO airport, noise for 99% of Palo Alto will not change a bit. If you look at (online aviation chart site) skyvector.com and enter airport KPAO, it will be difficult for you to even find Palo Alto airport mixed in with all of the other airports (many military or commercial) in the area.
The Bay Area has one of the most complex airspaces in the world, with some of the most beautiful scenery in the world. This attracts pilots from, you guessed it, all over the world. Removing PAO will simply shift the same overflights landing spots, but they will still fly over Atherton and still generally go up/down hwy 101, as that’s where the bay-approach controllers like smaller aircraft to go.
For what it’s worth, the little guys (as we call light aircraft) would vastly prefer to fly higher, but all that airspace is reserved for approach and departure from SFO/SJC/OAK. Controllers extremely rarely grant permission for VFR flights to go up into the Bravo airspace, higher up for their safety as well as lower noise.
That said, while typing this I’ve heard three commercial jets, none of which will be affected by PAO either way.
$668K over 40 years? So the airport costs $16700 per year to operate. You can debate the merits of an airport, but it doesn’t seem like the debate involves economics since Alma Street probably costs more than $16700/year to maintain.
DADVPj