L.A. to unveil Palmdale Airport
promotion plan

L.A. World Airports and the city of Palmdale signed a memorandum of understanding in October saying they would spruce up and market the existing passenger terminal at Air Force Plant 42 to lure passenger carriers and cargo operations to the airport.

An early coup in the effort came in December, when SR Technics America Ltd., an aircraft maintenance company now ramping up its operation on Site 9 at Air Force Plant 42, decided to locate its U.S. operations on LAWA land.

Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford said today's meeting is a chance for LAWA to update the L.A. City Council on the status of Palmdale Regional Airport's facilities, marketing efforts and access issues.

L.A. World Airports already has an agreement with Air Force Plant 42, which allows 50 takeoffs and landings per day. Since no carriers serve Palmdale Regional Airport, the agreement isn't being used.

City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, who represents Los Angeles' 6th District, has waited more than six months for this day, Galanter spokeswoman Nikki Tennant said.

In October, Galanter's motion to study the Palmdale Airport's future use was approved unanimously as a consent agenda item. Such easy victories have been rare for Galanter, who has been fighting in the city's political trenches for 10 years in an effort to prove the viability of a Palmdale airport.

While Galanter's interest in Palmdale Regional Airport has made her something of a folk hero to the Antelope Valley's economic development crowd, her interest actually lies adjacent to Los Angeles International Airport, where her constituents hear jet aircraft roar over their neighborhood 24 hours a day.

Steering LAX's growth to an underused airfield like Palmdale would ease the burden of Galanter's constituents, so she's been a vocal supporter of an expanded Palmdale facility.

The study is supposed to list all the necessary construction, estimating its costs and completion dates, and also include a marketing strategy that can convince passenger airlines to reopen the Palmdale terminal.

In determining the construction, speed and cost of developing Palmdale Regional Airport, LAWA was directed to do a feasibility study that set forth a number of goals for the airport.

According to those goals, the Palmdale airport will aim for 4 million passengers annually by 2010 and 7.3 million by 2020. The plan LAWA unveils today is supposed to propose a marketing and construction plan that can fulfill those expectations.

Those figures assume a bestcase scenario, however, and people acquainted with the airport issue are slightly more conservative.

David Myers, a former Palmdale City Council member now an economic development coordinator, became familiar with the airport's politics as chairman of the Southern California Association Governments' Transportation Committee. He has said he thinks annual passenger figures around 2 or 3 million are more realistic for 2010, and around 7 million for 2020.

Galanter also said early on that she is not entirely convinced that the higher numbers can be achieved, considering the likelihood that unforeseen political obstacles could delay the project.