The U.S. Is Far from Ready

AIRPORTS FOR THE JET AGE

With the jet air age expected to begin late next year, when the first 600-m.p.h. jet transports are delivered to domestic airlines, few U.S. cities will be ready to handle either the big planes or the flood of new travelers riding in them. During the twelve months ending last March, air traffic at a dozen leading U.S. airports jumped 19%; with jets that can carry up to 140 passengers, v. 90 for the biggest piston-engine plane, traffic volume will soon rise even faster. But most cities are still dragging their heels on airport-improvement plans. "Unless some of these people get busy and fast," says one United Air Lines captain, "I can see the day when the sky will be full of planes all looking for a place to land."

The coming of the turbojet will multiply the problems of airports that are crowded, inconvenient and sometimes dangerous even for today's DC-75. The jets will weigh 300,000 Ibs. fully loaded, v. 150,000 Ibs. for the largest piston-engine airliner now in use, making most present runways too short for safety, and the hot breath of jet-engine exhausts will melt many runway and taxi-strip surfaces. Moreover, since six jetliners arriving close together will disembark as many passengers as an ocean liner, the passenger, baggage and ticketing jams of today will pale beside tomorrow's.

Aware of these facts, some U.S. cities have not done too badly by their airports. Boston's Logan International Airport has the longest main runway (10,022 ft.) of any commercial field in the U.S., no tall buildings on the horizon, well-compacted runways that can withstand almost any amount of pounding. It has a new approach lighting system for safe, sure landings in bad weather, and a big, decentralized terminal that minimizes the passengers' ground time, which many experts say may be 25% of all air-travel time in the jet age. The Massachusetts legislature has also voted $18 million for new hangars and a freight terminal to make Logan even more efficient. Next month Dallas' Love Field will open a $7,500,000 terminal building with facilities for 6,000,000 passengers annually (current volume: 3,000,000). The city has also built a 500,000-gal. underground fuel-storage system, and concrete taxi aprons and loading ramps thick enough for heavier jetliners than any yet designed. New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco also expect to be ready with long runways and big terminals. Though San Francisco's new $14 million terminal is only three years old, the city's voters have authorized another $25 million outlay over the next ten years for runway and terminal expansion to handle the 10 million passengers it expects by 1972.

Opposed to such farsightedness, most cities have been slow to wake up to the jet age. Washington, D.C. has no commercial field adequate for large-volume jet traffic, and no prospect of one until the President recommends and Congress authorizes a new field, probably at nearby Burke, Va. Chicago's tiny (1 sq. mi.) Midway Field was originally built for the canvas-covered planes of 1927; today it is the world's busiest airport, and far behind the times. While Chicago has put $25 million into its new O'Hare Field, 15 miles from the Loop, few airlines are anxious to use it until better access-highways and other improvements totaling $100 million are provided.

Kansas City, Mo. also started, and never quite finished, a jet-age airport. Three years ago the city acquired 4,700 acres for a new $26 million jet-age airfield 16 miles from downtown, but ran out of money after spending $6,000,000. Denver's Stapleton Airfield is in even worse straits. Until recently its 10,005-ft. main runway was one of the nation's best. But for jets, which lose thrust as the air thins at a much greater rate than prop planes, the city's mile-high altitude has cut effective runway length by more than a third. Denver wants to build a new 11,500-ft. runway, but this job and other needed improvements will require $15.5 million, which the city says it cannot raise. Says a Trans World Airlines official: "Cities like this don't realize how the jet age has overtaken them. They are not going to be able to serve either the public that wants to ride jet planes or the lines that want to fly them."

The cities can expect some help from the U.S. Government. Congress recently authorized a four-year, $252 million federal airport-aid program. Yet the whole sum could easily be spent on a few fields the size of New York's Idlewild, where a $120 million terminal building is under construction. For the bulk of their funds, the cities must depend on themselves. The alternative is poor service, or none at all, from the swift new jets. "Sure, it's a problem," says Delta Air Lines President Collett Everman Woolman. "But this industry grew up solving problems. It's not a question whether you can afford jets. You just can't afford not to have them."

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