Tour operators dealt blow: Southern Nevada firms vow to block government’s Grand Canyon rules

Tuesday, March 27, 2001 | 11:11 a.m.

Grand Canyon air tour operators flying out of Las Vegas say they'll go to court this week to block new federal rules imposed Monday -- rules they say will destroy their industry.

Tour operators said rules ordering new routes, ordered in a notice in the Federal Register, will move flights away from areas used by Indians and hikers, but also away from some of the most scenic parts of the canyon.

They also said the Federal Aviation Administration is violating its own policies by making a change in just one part of the canyon instead of considering what effect the change would have on the entire park -- and by making the change when business is heaviest.

Environmental leaders were pleased with the ruling, although they said it didn't go far enough in restoring quiet to the canyon.

"In an effort to do something even if it's wrong, the FAA, caving in to the demand of the (National) Park Service, has done irreparable damage to our Las Vegas-based members by destroying the only viable scenic air tour route they had left from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon," said Steve Bassett, president of the U.S. Air Tour Association in Washington.

Jim Petty, who owns and operates Air Vegas and has served as chairman of the Grand Canyon Air Tour Council, said the routes the FAA is proposing to take effect April 19 would force him to cut his company's shortest air tour in half and eliminate views of some of the waterfalls in the western end of the Grand Canyon.

Bassett said the Denver-based Mountain States Legal Foundation will seek an injunction to block implementation of the routes in the Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C.

Bassett blamed holdover officials with the FAA and not the current Bush administration for approving the new routes, although he was critical of FAA Administrator Jane Garvey for ignoring the recommendations of the industry, the FAA's Las Vegas office and Nevada's two senators.

Sens. John Ensign, R-Nev., and Harry Reid, D-Nev., co-signed a letter objecting to the route modification and the FAA's Las Vegas Flight Standards District Office also opposed the change.

"The FAA is ignoring its own policy by implementing rules in a piecemeal way, because they have modified routes in the western end, affecting Las Vegas operators, and not the entire canyon," Bassett said.

Tour operators are as dismayed with the timing of the decision as they are with the decision itself.

Petty said brochures already have been distributed worldwide advertising scenic tours to people who plan to visit Las Vegas this year.

"If these routes are implemented April 19, we're going to have to do some kind of modification on tickets already sold," he said.

Part of that, he said, may involve issuing partial refunds because the tours would be shorter than advertised.

"We'll still be able to fly them over Hoover Dam, and that's a very important part of the tour for most people," Petty said. "But in the Grand Canyon, Lava Falls (an impressive rapid on the Colorado River), Mount Sinyala and the Havasupai Indian Reservation (location of three waterfalls) are all gone."

Petty said about 1,000 people are employed in Southern Nevada by air tour companies. During peak operations, the city's eight air tour and helicopter companies have about 200 flights a day to the Grand Canyon.

Petty and Bassett also said they were concerned about safety issues associated with making the change just as the tour season is getting busy.

"Operators have entered their busy season and to train pilots will require taking aircraft off line," Bassett said. "The economic impact will be especially significant considering this training effort is in reality duplicate retraining as all pilots have already been trained on the existing routes.

"To avoid duplicity, the FAA has, in the past, accepted the policy that the winter season is the only safe and realistic time to train pilots and implement any route changes."

About 800,000 people take scenic tours over the Grand Canyon every year.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., sponsored the bill asking the FAA and the Park Service to develop rules to restore natural quiet to the canyon.

Environmental leaders welcomed the news of the new routes, but were disappointed that they didn't address the most populated part of the Grand Canyon: the eastern end.

"The impending closure of Blue 1 (the western air route) is the first real improvement since the existing tour routes went into effect in 1989," said Tom Robinson, government affairs director of the Grand Canyon Trust in Flagstaff, Ariz.

"Commercial air tours will no longer be audible in that section of the park from about the Bass Trail to somewhere east of Toroweap. At Toroweap itself, you'll probably still hear the Blue Direct flights in the distance. That's a sizable segment of the canyon -- about 70 river miles or 25 percent of the canyon's total length.

"However, this segment is right under heavily trafficked jet routes, so natural quiet will not be restored."