Supervisors to renew public airport debate

A report commissioned by Los Angeles County concluding more than 1 million passengers per year would fly out of Palmdale Airport if regular airline service were offered is to be presented to the Board of Supervisors today during its weekly meeting.

Stating that about 600,000 people live in north Los Angeles County within Palmdale's market area, a market study released on Thursday offers a comparison to similar markets around the country.

The study's authors used data from the Antelope Valley 2000 Demographic and Economic Study and interviewed 26 companies, including Fiberset Corp., BAE SYSTEMS Flight Systems, The Boeing Co., AVTEL, Rexall, SR Technics of America Ltd., Senior Systems Technology, Northrop Grumman Corp. and Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Corp.

Long Beach-based Tri-Star Marketing Co. began work on the 80-page report last summer, according to the office of L.A. County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, whose 5th District includes the Antelope Valley.

Antonovich successfully passed a motion to have the report commissioned last year.

"The market study's conclusion that the Antelope Valley can support a regional airport is welcome news for the 3 million people who would no longer be forced to drive congested highways to Los Angeles International Airport," Antonovich said.

The 5th District is geographically the largest in the county.

Those efforts aside, the Department of Los Angeles World Airports next month plans to put out a request for proposals for a master plan at Palmdale.

"That master plan, among other things, will address how to attract additional cargo flights and the development of cargo facilities," said Jim Ritchie, a World Airports commissioner.

Developing facilities at Palmdale includes construction of a cargo ramp, a 322- by 580-foot aircraft cargo parking ramp that's expected to help attract air cargo service to Palmdale.

"We continue to be making good progress on movement of adding the cargo ramp at that airport, which is necessary to help facilitate flights bringing in cargo," Ritchie added. "I think it's safe to say that LAWA is doing its best to attract cargo flight to Palmdale. It may be easier to attract cargo-only flights before we can get passenger service, but we're aggressively working at attracting both."

The Palmdale Airport saw its last commercial operations end when United Express, the only airline flying out of the hub, departed in April 1998.

Politicos within Los Angeles are looking to outlying airports as a way of relieving congestion at LAX.

Meanwhile, LAX remains the world's fourth busiest airport with an all-time high of 67.6 million passengers and 2.24 million tons of cargo, according to LAWA statistics. Those statistics also show that Ontario Airport remains California's sixth busiest airport with 6.74 million passengers and 6.75 tons of cargo.

"LAX is the United States' main entryway for travelers and goods to and from the Pacific Rim region," said John J. Agoglia, president of the Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners. "Through LAWA's marketing efforts, Ontario International - with its spacious, state-of-the-art twin terminals - is becoming known to an increasing number of travelers as the `other' gateway" to Southern California's businesses and tourist attractions."

Agoglia also expressed the need for all commercial passenger and cargo airports in Southern California to "step up to the plate" to address the ever-increasing demand for air services.

"It's only through cooperation with other airports and modernization of our aviation infrastructure can the region's airports better serve our passengers and improve the quality of life for all Southern Californians," he said.

LAX experienced a 5.18% increase in passengers last year to 67,606,831 from 64,279,813 in 1999. Air cargo also increased by the same percentage, from 2,138,221 tons in 1999 to 2,249,000 tons in 2000.

International passenger traffic rose 9.87% to 17,376,367 and domestic traffic rose by 3.64% to 50,230,464.

Aircraft movements (takeoffs and landings) at LAX were up by only one-half of 1% to 783,433 in 2000 from 779,150 in 1999.

According to airport officials, airlines served more passengers by using larger-capacity aircraft and boarding more passengers per flight.

"LAX's continued passenger and cargo growth is consistent with our projections," said LAWA Executive Director Lydia H. Kennard. "However, we are greatly concerned that while we are doing a good job today, it becomes more challenging to operate effectively at 50% over-capacity in an airport designed for 40 million annual passengers."

She added, "Future modernization of LAX through our proposed master plan is critical to improving airfield safety and passenger service, reducing flight delays, mitigating traffic congestion and improving the quality of life for our neighbors in terms of aircraft noise and air pollution."

Kennard described Ontario Airport as "the only airport in Southern California with capacity to address future growth." It has the capacity to handle 10 million annual passengers and LAWA has an agreement with the airlines to build another terminal that will increase ONT's capacity to 12 to 15 million passengers.

Kennard attributed the growth at ONT to the launch of international flights by AeroMexico, addition of several new flights and new routes by current airlines, and the successful start-up of cross-continental flights by jetBlue.

Passenger traffic at Ontario during 2000 increased 2.7% to 6,756,086 more than 1999's level of 6,578,005. Air cargo at Ontario increased 4.5% to 510,721 tons in 2000 from 488,773 tons in 1999. This increase in passenger and cargo traffic was accompanied by a decline of 0.7% in operations to 155,501 from 156,607 in 1999.

Palmdale Regional Airport, LAWA's commercial facility in northern Los Angeles County, reported 45,121 landings and takeoffs of air taxi (charter), general aviation and military aircraft during 2000.