Airport future still a big question mark

Editorial Focus: While officials embark on a major expansion program at LAX, we continue to wait in great frustration for something significant to happen at Palmdale Airport.

The Los Angeles Department of Airports is busy, busy, busy trying to squeeze perhaps as many as 40 million more passengers a year through the security gates at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).

The LAX Master Plan anticipates that L.A. will need to handle 98 million passengers a year by 2015.

For Palmdale Airport there is an ironic coincidence in the growth figures. When the Palmdale "Intercontinental" Airport was announced in June, 1968, it was anticipated that LAX would be filled to capacity when it hit 40 million passengers a year.

Last year, LAX handled (or mishandled) 58 million travelers - with ground access nearing gridlock. But, the Master Plan reveals that the highest population densities in the L.A. Basin are in the environs of 3,000-acre LAX.

The attempt to expand LAX by another 40 million annual passengers is, of course, a "Mission Impossible."

But the planners are going to try as best they can.

Two airport officials, J.L. "Jack" Graham, chief of airport planning, and Michael DiGirolamo, director of airports operations, presented a slide show Wednesday, March 26, for members of the Palmdale Regional Airport Advisory Council (PRAAC) to explain the LAX Master Plan.

Although we are talking longterm here, one of the most hopeful notes to come out of the meeting was the revelation that a number of airline maintenance facilities will have to be moved off LAX's overcrowded property.

Palmdale could be an ideal location for those facilities.

The two department officials see little chance of expanding Palmdale passenger operations in the near future, but said they encourage cargo operators to take advantage of the far-less-crowded airport terminal at Palmdale, located on land leased from Air Force Plant 42.

The officials said that the Department of Airports has not considered selling its 17,750-acre spread and in fact is in the process of purchasing a few parcels that still have to be acquired to fill in all the pieces of the Manhattansized jigsaw puzzle.

Lt. Col. Peter Drinkwater, commander of AF Plant 42, urged local airport boosters to continue to work with the L.A. Department of Airports to further development of the local terminal. He further urged that if a survey is to be done to establish priority needs for the airport, the Department of Airports, the AV Board of Trade and PRAAC work together on a single study rather than have two or more redundant reports made.

Drinkwater said that work will begin soon on improving taxiways, establishing full lighting for both of Plant 42's 12,000 foot runways, and other improvements.

On Friday, Feb. 7, Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich suggested that L.A. County and the cities of Lancaster and Palmdale buy the airport in order to accelerate its development.

A preliminary estimate by county officials shows that the real estate value of the undeveloped 17,750-acre airport property would be, at a minimum, $177.5 million.

Out of all this discussion, these points should be made:

Any study of future passenger use will probably show that a few people would like to have service between Palmdale and Sacramento and a few more would like to be able to fly to San Francisco and back. Southwest Airlines says it needs 10 flights a day serving a minimum of 1,500 passengers in order to break even in serving any airport.

The most feasible passenger system would be multiple daily flights to Las Vegas - not so much for gamblers, but to connect with other flights to destinations any place on the globe.

The United Express flights between Palmdale and LAX provide the only local passenger service. The system is wonderful if passengers are connecting with United flights to other destinations, but are otherwise expensive. Most people opt to drive or take vans to LAX and Burbank.

As for cargo, maintenance and modification work, Palmdale has much to offer and we should be heavily promoting those kind of job-creating enterprises.

There is no question that Palmdale has an expansive future in commercial aviation, but, at this juncture, it doesn't appear that it is going to happen in this century.