Lovins: Pitkin County’s airport TV ad is false, misleading

Pitkin County’s airport ad campaign is not educational or neutral but false and misleading. It spreads artful concoctions, like “For continued safe and environmentally-sensitive operations, a new runway is needed NOW” — packing at least seven confusions into one sentence. 

It’s odd to see the county spend public funds not only to convince us of what it claims we want, but also to deceive us with repeated untruths. Let’s fact-check specific claims, documenting details at aspenflyright.org/tvopeddocs.pdf. 

The TV ad says: “A lot has changed since the eighties, but one thing that hasn’t changed is the Pitkin County Airport.”

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This is misleading. 

In 1999, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approved a 95-foot Aspen wingspan limit and airfield layout, with safety equivalent to standard layout for 118 feet. That’s because in 1995, Pitkin County voters soundly rejected expansion to bring in 737s. Citizens spurned bigger planes’ impacts on safety, noise, pollution, and community character. They didn’t want a bigger airport for bigger planes, now rebranded as “moderniza­tion.” They just wanted a better airport. It seems they still do. 

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Know what else hasn’t changed? The slot canyon, Shale Bluffs, altitude, winds, mountain weather, the shared in/out runway, and an overcrowded community fighting for its soul.

Ad: “Pitkin County Commissioners have approved a community driven plan to modernize the airport and move it into the twenty-first century.”

This is false in at least three ways. 

The commissioners on July 12 voted to not “approve” the expansionist forecast but only “authorize” sending it to the FAA —after future “delibera­tion” to try to recon­cile it with Core Commun­ity Goals enshrined in Resolution 105-2020. The ad shows that 2020 Resolution getting a green “APPROVED” stamp; now the 2023 forecast shreds its goals, as we’ll see below.

The ad pictures a new terminal costing one-fifth of the budget. The unmentioned four-fifths rebuilds the airfield for unmentioned bigger planes. 

The $3.7-million ASE Vision process was not “community driven.” County staff and consultants designed, micromanaged, and drove it toward prebaked outcomes. Moreover, in hindsight, it looks like a deft bait-and-switch. Three premises drove ASE Vision and the BOCC in 2019–20 to endorse bigger planes, lest Aspen lose commercial service: 

1. The airlines’ CRJ700 was imminently retiring (It wasn’t); 
2. No similar-sized replacement was available (dubious), and specifically; 
3. The popular Embraer E175LR-EWT regional jet wasn’t Aspen-qualified. 

Yet in 2022, that same Embraer was somehow chosen as the replacement regional jet for Aspen. In 2023, it was officially forecast to enter Aspen service in 2023–24, then 2024–25, and to displace all CRJ700s by 2032. We were all assured in 2013–21 that replacing CRJ700s with another regional jet that fits today’s airfield was impossible; now it’s the plan. So the original rationale for bigger airplanes and a new airfield has vanished but been forgotten while its conclusion persists. Why exactly do we still need bigger planes? 

Perhaps the ad’s most egregious claim is: “Built on a solid foundation of safety, quieter skies, and cleaner air”

This is not true. 

The county’s plan meets none of the Core Community Goals for safety, noise, pollution, climate, and growth management and flunks two key goals for airplanes. These contradictions violate Resolution 105-2020’s commitments to the community.

As to safety: The plan would redesign the airfield for the Airbus A220-300 not yet certified to fly here. Its 130–160 seats are twice today’s 70-seaters and twice the valley’s extreme-stretch emergency medical capacity. 

Impacts: The county’s plan can never cut noise or emissions by the goals’ 30%. Air pollution would worsen. Noise would worsen until at least 2027. Growth management is sacrificed to FAA’s forecast of a half-million Aspen airline passengers in 2050, then more. And while claiming bigger planes mean fewer flights, the county forecasts more flights. 

The ad concludes with a snake-oil pitch: “To be ready for tomorrow, we need to act today”

Who is saying we must act today? The airlines serving Aspen aren’t asking for bigger planes. Almost no one else is either, except county staff and their mouthpieces. Today’s haste risks building a half-billion-dollar white elephant — and forever losing what so many Aspenites cherish.

Those two-thirds more Aspen airline passengers by 2050 … where will they sleep and eat? How will they get around? Who will serve them, living where, and getting upvalley how? 

What would an informed, not deceived, majority choose? Democracies offer a way to find out. 

The county should stop spending public funds to run untrue and deceptive ads to convince citizens to want something we didn’t ask for and don’t need — bigger planes and a new airfield. What we did ask for and do need — a modern terminal, modern multimodal ground transport, modern pilot information, landing aids, and runway repairs — everyone already wants.

Amory Lovins (Old Snowmass) is president of the independent, volunteer, non-profit charity Aspen Fly Right. Its ads, op-eds, and ten documented essays are free at aspenflyright.org.