Window of opportunity opens up for AV airport

Fred Davis, the chief of Long Beach-based Tri-Star Marketing, said the window is opening because major airlines are acquiring commuter jets in the 50-to-70 seat range.

Davis spoke to a group of dozens of community leaders at a meeting called by the county mayor, Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, whose 5th District includes the Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys.

A Palmdale Airport meeting in Lancaster? It happened at Los Angeles County Fire Station 129, expanding on the theme that Valley airport service is a regional problem with a regional solution.

"Tri-Star skillfully pointed out a demand for air service originating from the Antelope Valley that would serve the Valley, Santa Clarita and other parts of the county," Antonovich said.

Antonovich predicts the right marketing program could lure an airline to the Valley "as fast as the fall."

"If the city of Los Angeles doesn't want to move forward, the county should join with the cities up here," Antonovich said.

Tri-Star chief Davis expounded on conclusions his company reached in a recent consulting report that was unanimously approved by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

Briefly, Tri-Star's report concluded the Antelope Valley can support regular airline service now with a potential of bringing $65 million in revenue to the Valley in jobs and services. Such an airport arrangement would draw commuters from a population base of 1 million people up the hill from the Santa Clarita Valley and other areas in the region.

Representatives hearing the presentation came from area chambers of commerce, airport interest groups and town councils.

R. Gregg Anderson, who heads the Rancho Vista Development Co., also leads an area committee convened by Antonovich. He said the group believes Tri-Star would make an excellent consultant and marketing promoter for Los Angeles World Airports, the Los Angeles city organization that owns 17,000 acres near Air Force Plant 42.

Under an agreement with the Air Force, Plant 42 can be the host to up to 50 commercial flights a day. Filling the Plant 42 quota would pave the way for getting a true Palmdale Regional Airport going on the Los Angeles city property, airport proponents and Antonovich believe.

Filling up the Plant 42 quota could trigger development of LAWA's acreage.

"That's what the city of Los Angeles envisioned in the 1960s," Antonovich said. "Forty years is long enough to wait."

Developer Anderson said he hoped Tri-Star would win a proposal to represent LAWA as the market development consultant for Palmdale.

"They have a lot in their briefcase already, research that wouldn't have to be duplicated," the developer said.

"I'm excited," said Palmdale City Councilman Rick Norris, who has devoted keen interest to the airport project over the years. He said he planned to put the topic on the next Palmdale City Council agenda.

"We want the council to discuss it so there is no question about our position," he said.

In the past, the city has been cool to some airport initiatives out of fear of alienating the LAWA agency or its intentions to support regional development.

During the 1990s and into the new century, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan championed massive expansion of Los Angeles International Airport, which sits on its 3,500-acre land- and sea-locked lot, while ignoring Palmdale's 17,000 acres. That could change with a new administration in Los Angeles City Hall later this year when Riordan leaves office.

Of the Palmdale council, Norris said, "We have to see what we can do to get LAWA and the county supervisors to push Palmdale forward together."