Air exec down on airport idea

Instead, Carol Hallett, president and chief executive of the Washington, D.C.-based Air Transport Association, said the overcrowding problem should be solved by expanding LAX.

As for Palmdale, "There is nobody out there, and nobody wants to go out there," Hallett stated in a story published in the June 29 edition of the Los Angeles Business Journal.

Attempts to reach Hallett at her Washington, D.C., office Thursday were unsuccessful. Hallett's secretary said she would be traveling until Monday.

"We have seen similar situations play out across the country, where a number of places try to jump start an economy by building an airport," she told the Business Journal. "All of these places the airlines say don't make sense, but they (local officials) go ahead with them anyway. And sure enough, the demand turns out not to be there.

"This `build it and they will come' idea hasn't worked with other airports around the country, and it is not likely to work in Palmdale," Hallett said, citing a virtually unused airport near St. Louis and another at the former Scott Air Force Base in Illinois.

Developer R. Gregg Anderson co-chairs a regional airport committee with 5th District Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich. Both intend to challenge Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan's LAX Master Plan expansion strategy.

Anderson said Hallett's comparison between the Antelope Valley and St. Louis was flawed.

"I think she's a hired gun by the airlines who obviously doesn't know the demographics of the Antelope Valley," Anderson said. "We have a population that is as big as St. Louis, but she says they have two airports they can't support. The last time I looked around, we have none."

The airlines Hallett represents "don't want to staff any more ticket counters than they absolutely have to," he said. If that means forcing air travelers to drive one or two hours to the nearest terminal, "they really don't care."

"She's parroting the line of what we can anticipate hearing from the airlines themselves" should they be asked to open new counters in Palmdale instead of adding to those in Los Angeles, Anderson said.

"People travel from here to LAX, Burbank or Ontario (airports) not because they want to but because they have to," he said.

Anderson said he would expand his comments Tuesday during a luncheon by the Palmdale Chamber of Commerce, where he will discuss "Palmdale Regional Airport: Is It Going to Crash?"

Speaking in Los Angeles June 23, Hallett told business leaders: "Everyone in this room recognizes that the plans to modernize and upgrade the airport through the LAX Master Plan must move forward for Los Angeles to maintain its proper place in global trade and tourism.

"Other airports - Ontario, Burbank, Orange County, Long Beach, and maybe even El Toro - also play a role in serving the region's passengers and shippers. But LAX is - and will likely remain - the region's main economic asset, providing all of Southern California not only trade and business advantages but an unmatched level of convenience for airline pleasure travelers as well."

Some members of the Los Angeles City Council disagree.

A poll of the council by the Valley Press in May showed four of its 15 members - Ruth Galanter, Jackie Goldberg, Cindy Miscikowski and Joel Wachs - were interested at looking at regional solutions to LAX's problems, including the potential expansion of Palmdale Regional Airport.

Four others - John Ferraro, Mike Hernandez, Hal Bernson and Richard Alatorre - were interested in expanding other airports like Palmdale's in addition to expanding LAX.

Only two - Richard Alarcon and Rudy Svorinich Jr. - preferred focusing on a LAX-only solution, while five - Nate Holden, Michael Feuer, Laura Chick, Rita Walters and Mark Ridley-Thomas - opted to withhold opinions until Riordan's LAX Master Plan comes forward for discussion sometime in 1999.

The master plan's most strident critic - the Palmdale expansion's most ardent supporter - has been Galanter.

Responding to Hallett's comments, Galanter told the Business Journal she was "disappointed that the ATA has taken such an adamant stance in favor of a plan to expand LAX that is doomed to failure.

"But then again, I am not surprised," she said. "The airlines have never been known for their forward-looking approach. They are very short-term oriented."

Even if LAX expands, demand still will outstrip services, and the ongoing congestion will send the airlines to other cities, Galanter said.

"They will go to Denver, they will go to Las Vegas, so why not have them go to Palmdale? At least there they will be in the Los Angeles area, and our economy will benefit," she said.