The FAA issued a 57-page opinion early last month affirming its decision that the City of Santa Monica, Calif., does not have the ability to prevent certain types of large business jets from operating at Santa Monica Airport. Following a July 2002 recommendation from the Santa Monica Airport Commission, the City Council in March 2008 enacted an ordinance prohibiting operation of approach category C and D aircraft (with approach speeds greater than 121 knots). After the FAA’s legal moves put a halt to the ordinance, the city appealed.
The FAA’s latest decision noted that “The City is bound under Grant Assurance 22 ‘to make its airport available as an airport for public use on fair and reasonable terms and without unjust discrimination to all types, kinds and classes of aeronautical uses.’” The city received nearly $10.2 million in federal airport improvement grants through 2003. The category C and D ban, the FAA wrote, “Is unjust and not necessary for the safe operation of the airport.”
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