LV firms part of air tour industry lawsuit

Friday, April 28, 2000 | 11:34 a.m.

Air tour operators that fly 800,000 visitors a year over the Grand Canyon from Las Vegas-area locations will join a lawsuit to block a new series of flight restrictions announced by the Clinton administration last month.

Representatives of five tour companies that have local operations flying planes and helicopters over the national park announced today they are joining two other companies and the U.S. Air Tour Association to file the suit next week in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

"This is an unconscionable act of aggression by the Clinton administration against visitors to the Grand Canyon," USATA President Steve Bassett said in a statement this morning.

"At the direct order of President Clinton, the National Park Service and the Federal Aviation Administration have abused their regulatory powers for the sole purpose of irreparably harming and destroying the small business air tour operators that provide spectacular air tours to nearly 20 percent of the park's visitors in the only manner many of them can see the Grand Canyon," he said.

"We cannot sit by and permit these agencies to ignore the will of Congress, to kill an important and vibrant part of the economy of the rural West and to close the Grand Canyon to visits by elderly and physically infirmed visitors."

In this morning's announcement, the tour operators said they will be represented by the Denver-based Mountain States Legal Foundation, a nonprofit public interest legal center dedicated to property rights and free-enterprise cases. The MSLF has taken on cases involving Western federal lands and environmental law in the past.

Eight airplane tour operators and five helicopter companies offer scenic tours to the Grand Canyon from Las Vegas-area bases. One helicopter company has tour departures from the Strip; other companies fly from McCarran International Airport, the North Las Vegas Airport and Henderson Executive Airport.

The Las Vegas companies that are joining the suit, which will be filed Monday or Tuesday, are Scenic Airlines and Air Vegas Airlines, the two largest operators, Papillon Grand Canyon Helicopters, Las Vegas Helicopters and Maverick Helicopters. Arizona-based companies that will join the suit are Grand Canyon Airlines and AirStar Helicopters.

Under new rules announced last month by the administration, a "no-fly zone" in Grand Canyon National Park would be expanded from about 45 percent of the park to about 75 percent of it. The number of flights would be capped at 1998 levels.

The rules were drawn in compliance with a 1987 federal law sponsored by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., requiring the federal government to restore natural quiet to the canyon.

The new rules were drafted by the FAA and the National Park Service.

When the rules were announced last month, Bassett said they would have a devastating effect on the companies and the 20 percent of the people who visit the Grand Canyon by air.

Flights would be banned over the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers, a place considered sacred by the Navajo and Hopi Indian tribes. The plan also would eliminate flights over portions of the Hualapai and Havasupai Indian reservations on the west end of the Grand Canyon.

The Hualapai area is among the closest canyon land to Las Vegas and Havasupai is a tourist favorite because it is the location of three noteworthy waterfalls.

The rule that limits the number of flights uses the period from May 1997 to April 1998 as a benchmark. Park Service officials say about 88,000 flights flew over the canyon in that time frame.

Tour operators say the 1997-98 time frame is unfair because there were 45 days of inclement weather then and flights also were scaled back dramatically then because the Asian economic crisis forced operators to have fewer flights.

Environmentalists aren't happy with the new rules either -- they want more restrictions.

Tom Robinson, a spokesman for the Grand Canyon Trust, a Flagstaff, Ariz.-based environmental group, said the rules are "a good start," but don't go far enough to protect the canyon from noise the planes make.

Some tour operators have begun using larger but quieter planes on the canyon runs in an effort to abide by the spirit of the law while maintaining higher passenger counts.