RE: “I'm only trying to provide some perspective to those who wish to heighten the anxiety of residents near the TCCA with speculative and unfounded doomsday scenarios.” ( Porter is capped at 176 take-offs and landings 17Aprt09)

Gee, thanks Joe! It certainly will be reassuring for residents near the TCCA to know that there’s a daily cap of 176 landing/take-off events based on “slots” or whatever. My “speculative and unfounded” take of 70 landing/take-off events was bad enough I thought (and certainly sufficient cause for angst), but almost three times that is as close to a “doomsday scenario” as I can imagine! … it means that from 7am through 11pm each day there will be on average a take-off/landing every 5.5 minutes!

Incidently this “cap” business is par for the course. At both airports cited (San Diego and London City) caps were set and blown repeatedly. The common denominator is that commercial airports have a penchant for growth. It’s axiomatic … they must keep growing to survive. Essentially it boils down to this – whoever or whatever you believe, tripartite agreement or no, if nothing is done to stop it (and time is on the wing) the island airport is going to be one heluva busy commercial airport with bountiful noise and pollution to match, that will clash big time with the local waterfront environment as we now know and experience it. It will be a regretful mistake of monstrous proportions, and certainly a doomsday scenario come to life.

David Wilson