Sounding Off at Two Airports

The skies may be friendly enough, but the folks on the ground can be decidedly hostile to the prospect of giant jet aircraft descending in their midst. Although they are 14 hours apart as the 747 flies, protesters in Narita, Japan, and certain neighbors of New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport have similar grievances: the former do not want any jets at all in their bailiwick, while the latter oppose the supersonic, supernoisy Anglo-French Concorde. Last week the battle between planes and people was joined on both fronts:

-- In Narita, 40 miles east of Tokyo, the government suspended test flights at a spacious new international airport after a frenzied struggle between 3,700 students and farmers and 4,000 policemen. More than 400 people were injured, and one demonstrator died from a head wound inflicted by a tear-gas canister. The government prompted the fracas by ordering police to tear down two steel towers put up to block flights after completion of the $750 million airport in 1972. After the riot, demonstrators hastily erected new wooden platforms facing the runway and camped out nearby. Government officials still hope to open Narita by November to ease traffic at Tokyo's Haneda Airport, now clogged by 400 flights daily.

-- In New York, U.S. Judge Milton Pollack voided the ban imposed by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey on Concorde landings at Kennedy (TIME, March 21). The verdict is a substantial victory for Air France and British Airways, which stand to lose nearly all the $500 million invested in the plane without a New York run. Airline officials began making plans to fly the big bird into New York by June 20. Local anti-Concorde groups loudly pledged further court action and threatened to block traffic to and from the airport as they have done twice before in their long crusade for peace and quiet.

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