Vegas air tour operators hope Bush will ease Grand Canyon rules

Air tour operators are hoping the incoming Bush administration will be friendlier than President Clinton to the industry, which flies 800,000 passengers a year over the Grand Canyon.

The U.S. Air Tour Association, which has lobbied heavily on behalf of Nevada's tour operators to preserve air corridors over the canyon that would be eliminated by Clinton-backed anti-noise regulations, hopes Bush will have a pro-business stance on tours.

"Finally, after eight long, arduous years, we have hope that we have elected a president and vice president who will demand fairness and balance when it comes to environmental policy and impacts on federal lands and the airspace above," said Steve Bassett, president of the USATA. "This is all we ever asked."

Environmental leaders, meanwhile, have said the existing law and policies should be observed.

A Federal Aviation Administration spokesman says a change in the administration is irrelevant; the agency will continue to fulfill the requirements of the law enacted to restore natural quiet to Grand Canyon National Park by reducing flights and restricting planes from certain parts of the vast region southeast of Las Vegas.

Seven airlines and helicopter companies based at Southern Nevada airports offer tours, many of them catering to foreign tourists who maximize their time in the Southwest by taking tour flights.

Earlier this month, the FAA published notice of a comment period on a series of modified routes over the canyon. Although tour operators have said they wanted the route issue to be resolved quickly so they could begin distributing tour literature to their contacts overseas, the USATA sought a stay in the implementation of the routes because of safety issues.

After a series of legal challenges from the USATA in the District Court of Appeals in Washington D.C., and comments reviewed by the FAA, the agency published a request for additional comments related to safety, due Jan. 12.

Howard Nesbitt, a spokesman for the FAA, said once the comments are received and any issues raised are resolved, training routes and schedules will be published with maps and charts showing the modified routes, which are expected to be available by spring.

But Bassett and his group are hoping Bush, his Interior secretary and other appointees who oversee park policy and airspace matters will put the brakes on many of the proposals championed by Vice President Al Gore and Bill Clinton.

Bassett and the USATA have made no secret of their campaign for Bush against Gore. In October, they accused Gore of attempting to implement new Grand Canyon tour routes that were "a tragedy waiting to happen." Bassett said pilots were being asked to fly routes that put helicopters and planes in each other's paths.

Meanwhile, the USATA campaigned vigorously for Bush and in the weeks following the election, Bassett wrote several commentaries criticizing Gore's tactics to seek recounts in the Florida election.

The regulation of the airspace over the Grand Canyon has been in conflict since June 1986 when a helicopter and a tour plane collided, killing 25 people. In the wake of that accident, new safety rules were adopted.

When President Clinton took office, he sought further restrictions on air tours, calling for measures to increase the natural quiet of the area. That led to the adoption of a series of rules cutting the number of flights and redirecting traffic above the canyon.

Last April, the FAA published two final rules limiting flights and further defining flight-free zones. The limitations were to take effect in May and the new routes, in December.

In May, both the USATA and a coalition of environmental groups -- the Grand Canyon Trust, the National Parks and Conservation Association, the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, Friends of the Grand Canyon and Grand Canyon River Guides Inc. -- appealed the rules for different reasons.

The tour operators said the rules were too strict; the environmentalists said they weren't strict enough.

The court ruled that both groups hadn't fully exhausted their appeals through government agencies.

In October, the FAA denied the USATA's request for a stay of the rules and the tour operators again appealed to the court. That appeal is still pending. Meanwhile, the USATA sought a stay on safety grounds, which led to the FAA's most recent call for comments.

The safety issues cited by the USATA in its request:

* That there is no training coordination between the FAA's Las Vegas Flight Standards District Office and the Grand Canyon FAA control tower.

* That the FAA reduced the number of mandatory radio position reports that tour operators are required to make.

* That the FAA abandoned previous routes flown by both planes and helicopters, which the USATA says could lead to uncertainty and confusion among pilots.

* New Grand Canyon aeronautical charts inaccurately depict the location of critical physical checkpoints.

* Training on the proposed new routes would occur at the same time other pilots are flying existing routes, which criss-cross.

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