The Federal Aviation Administration, aka FAA, and the City of Santa Monica, California have reached an agreement to resolve longstanding litigation over the future of Santa Monica Airport (KSMO), originally known as Clover Field. The agreement requires the city to maintain “continuous and stable operation of the airport” for 12 years, until 31 December 2028.
However, after that Santa Monica has the right to and will apparently close the airport – with $$$dollars$$$ in city officials’ eyes and redevelop it.
Santa Monica Airport is the oldest airport in Los Angeles county and the home of the DC-3 – the Douglass Aircraft plane that made commercial aviation profitable and successful. As the C-47, it was also widely used in WW2. Apparently, city officials care not a naught about the heritage and the heroics of the people that built, maintained, and flew them. The first flights at Santa Monica were in early WWI biplanes, where it’s said pilots used the site – then a grass landing strip – as early 1919.
“In recognition of the city’s authority to make decisions about land use,” the FAA says the deal allows Santa Monica to shorten the airport’s single runway to 3,500 feet from its current length of 4,973 feet. The city is obligated to enter into leases with private aeronautical service providers to ensure continuity of those services until the runway is shortened and it decides to provide such services on its own.
“Cooperation between the FAA and the city enabled us to reach this innovative solution, which resolves longstanding legal and regulatory disputes,” claimed FAA Administrator Michael Huerta. “This is a fair resolution for all concerned because it strikes an appropriate balance between the public’s interest in making local decisions about land use practices and its interests in safe and efficient aviation services.”
Not surprisingly, Santa Monica government officials did not respond to requests to elaborate on future for the airport to AutoInformed.
