Air service in Palmdale by October?

Supervisors responded by approving a motion to pursue marketing the Palmdale airport to airlines, which hold the key to future air service in Palmdale. With the motion, the county will formally ask the airport's owner and the city of Palmdale to join the county in developing and implementing a marketing plan.

A county-commissioned study, released last week and presented to the board Tuesday, shows a large market for air service in the north L.A. County region.

The motion also instructed various county staff members and the consultant to present the report to the Palmdale Working Group at its March 7 meeting. The Palmdale Working Group is an advisory panel for Los Angeles World Airports, which owns four airports, including Palmdale and Los Angeles International.

Supervisors Michael D. Antonovich and Don Knabe introduced the motion as one more step in their quest to return passenger service to the north county. Antonovich represents the north county, and Knabe's district includes LAX. Both have loudly opposed LAX expansion and promoted increasing regional air travel.

"The report showed that if the airlines want it to happen, it will happen," Knabe said after Tuesday's meeting.

The 26 businesses in the region interviewed for the report account for 129,000 annual round trip passengers. That would support 26 jet flights and 18 commuter flights a day, according to the study.

"The thing I like about Palmdale is that its three business clusters - aerospace, education and medicine - are all heavy travelers," said Fred Davis, president of Tri-Star Marketing Co., the Long Beach firm that released the report.

LAWA recently released a draft master plan for expanding LAX, a plan that has drawn fire from various county and city leaders. The county and Palmdale are attempting to divert LAWA's attention to re-establishing passenger service at Palmdale.

"We have to put a concerted effort to tell the Palmdale story" to airlines, Davis said.

One way to do that is with an incentive package, including free landing fees and joint advertising. Davis said he recently worked one such package with a Stockton airport to encourage America West to make flights into Phoenix. That deal, worth $1.2 million, included Stockton pre-purchasing $750,000 worth of tickets.

Davis emphasized that the time is now to market Palmdale Regional, because the major airlines recently spent millions bolstering their airline fleets and will soon be deciding which new markets to serve.

"If we're not on their dance card, we're not going to the dance," Davis said.

Davis said his firm, which has enticed airlines to expand service to markets such as Oxnard and Sonoma County, is a contender for putting together a master plan for Palmdale. LAWA submitted a request for proposals late last year.