LV-area tour operators in stalemate over air routes

Monday, April 16, 2001 | 11:13 a.m.

The Federal Aviation Administration has replied to a lawsuit aimed at blocking a series of new air tour routes over the Grand Canyon, creating a stalemate that has placed tour operators in a financial holding pattern.

Late last week, the FAA and environmental activists filed replies to a suit filed by the U.S. Air Tour Association seeing to block a set of new routes scheduled to take effect Thursday.

The suit sought an injunction to stop implementation of the routes and the industry group later filed a separate motion asking the Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington D.C. to stop FAA-mandated training on the routes on safety grounds.

The court has not indicated when it will rule on the tour industry's motions.

The action is important to the Southern Nevada tourism industry because Grand Canyon tours attract about 800,000 people a year, many of them from foreign markets that Nevada tourism officials and hotel-casinos are targeting.

Air tour industry leaders aren't sure about the financial ramifications of the new routes, but say they may have to refund money to customers because tours will be shorter.

Two primary tour routes would be affected if the FAA mandate takes effect this week. One route is an out-and-back tour in which planes fly over the western reaches of Grand Canyon National Park. New routes would clip more than 50 miles of flying -- more than half the canyon portion of the tour.

Jim Petty, president of Air Vegas Airlines, which operates flights from Henderson Executive Airport, said that tour includes several canyon vistas and some of the only deep gorges to which aircraft still have access.

A second modified route would eliminate a meandering trip along the Colorado River in which passengers take an indirect flight from Las Vegas to Grand Canyon's airport at Tusayan, Ariz. Along the way, passengers can catch glimpses of the river, some major rapids, the Havasupai Indian Reservation and a series of tall waterfalls. That route would be replaced by a direct flight to Tusayan that flies over the Colorado River, but skirts most of the canyon.

Steve Bassett, president of the U.S. Air Tour Association in Washington, said the FAA's route order and a directive to begin training pilots how to fly it present a quandary for the tour industry. If the group prevails in court, it wouldn't have to train pilots or change its operations this summer.

If tour operations being training their pilots -- which they say is unsafe, because it presents a risk of head-on collisions -- they feel it could weaken their legal position. But if they don't train their pilots, assuming there is no court intervention, they wouldn't be able to operate when the new routes take effect.

Each air tour company has "check pilots" that are trained by the FAA, and they pass along information to others within their respective companies.

Environmentalists say the whole safety issue is a smokescreen, since tour operators already use some of the new FAA routes as alternatives when the weather is bad.

The industry association also is upset that the FAA is singling out routes and flights that affect the Nevada operators. In the past, the agency has said it would implement changes simultaneously with those in the east end of the canyon. The association also was concerned that the route changes were implemented weeks before the peak of the season. The FAA had said it would try to implement any changes in the off season so pilots could learn new routes when companies weren't as busy.

The FAA administrator handling the Grand Canyon routes could not be reached for comment.

Meanwhile, both the tour operators and environmentalists say they will begin cranking up their public relations efforts because of the failings of the government to meet deadlines on issues important to them.

Tom Robinson, director of conservation policy for the Flagstaff, Ariz.-based Grand Canyon Trust, said his group will go on the offensive on "the spectacular failure" of laws Congress has passed to bring natural quiet to Grand Canyon National Park.

April 22 will mark the fifth anniversary of the signing of legislation by President Clinton to restore natural quiet to 50 percent of the park, 75 percent of the time.

"This was supposed to have been done after the first year," Robinson said. "There have been some incremental improvements, but there really hasn't been anything substantial."

He said when the new FAA routes take effect, quiet would only be restored to about 43 percent of the canyon.

"I read somewhere that the issue of natural quiet is going to be the second-hand smoke issue of the 21st century," Robinson said. "I think that's probably true. There are so many people who are trying to find ways to escape (everyday noise) and the parks are where people go to get away."

The air tour industry, meanwhile, has its own beefs with the government and it cites a different deadline missed.

Bassett said last week that the FAA has failed to meet its requirements to develop incentives for canyon tour operators to use quiet-technology aircraft when a deadline passed April 5.

"Congress got tired of waiting on the FAA and took action itself," Bassett said. "The April 5 deadline has passed and still the FAA has done nothing to address the quiet technology issue. The agency appears to be purposely stonewalling this issue and the law, actions which have the effect of denying the Grand Canyon air tour industry any breathing room from onerous flight restrictions in the Grand Canyon."

Tour operators feel that if the agency establishes quiet-technology standards, they'll be able to make plans to upgrade their fleets to planes that aren't as noisy and will comply with the natural quiet standards sought by environmentalists.