Source:  1993 Air Passenger Survey, Los Angeles International Airport
Prepared for:  City of Los Angeles Department of Airports, August 1994.

Background:  In August and October 1993, J. D. Franz Research interviewed 40,105 departing passengers at LAX.  The large sample size provided very accurate findings.

The study showed that the 47.8 million annual passengers (MAP) using LAX  that year, broke into the following categories:

 

TYPE OF PASSENGER - 1993	PERCENT	MAP
Local residents	29 %	13.9
Visitors to the Greater Los Angeles area	33 %	15.8
Subtotal - O&D (a)	62 %	29.6
Passengers connecting through LAX or changing  planes	38 %	18.2
Total	100 %	47.8

(a) The term, O&D - Origin and Destination passengers, is commonly used to identify those
whose trip originated or ended at a residence, hotel or business in the area.  This does not include "Connecting" passengers who get off one plane and onto another without leaving the airport, or "Transit" passengers whose plane lands and then takes off enroute to another city.

 

VISITORS AND RESIDENTS COUNTY OF ORIGIN OR DEPARTURE FOR LAX - 1993	PERCENT OF O&D PASSENGERS	MAP		PERCENT OF TOTAL PASSENGERS
Los Angeles County	78 %	23.1		48.4 %
Orange County	14 %	4.1		8.7 %
Ventura County	5 %	1.5		3.1 %
Riverside/San Bernadino County	3 %	0.9		1.9 %
Total Residents and Visitors	100 %	29.6		62.0 %

Who uses LAX from Orange County?

The 14 % of O&D passengers from Orange County listed the following departure points:

5.7 % Anaheim/Disneyland  (1.7 million passengers)
1.7 % Seal Beach
1.6 % Santa Ana
1.5 % Anaheim/Orange
1.1 % Irvine/Newport
1.1 % Laguna Beach
1.0 % Fullerton/Brea
0.8 % Mission Viejo
0.2 % N. Irvine
0.1 % Tustin

What is the trend?

In a similar survey in 1987, 13 % of O&D passengers at LAX originated from Orange County.

The city of Los Angeles is conducting another in this series of surveys which will be completed in late 2001.

What do we know about current passenger traffic?

Until a new survey is completed, there are several approaches to estimating OC use of LAX:

• From 1993 to 2000, O. C. population grew by just over 10 %.  If passenger volume grew by the same percentage, 4.5 million passengers from OC would use LAX.

• From 1993 to 2000, LAX traffic increased from 47.8 million to 67.6 million passengers, including connecting passengers. If Orange County passengers continue to make up the same percentage of the total, then 5.8 million OC visitors and residents would use LAX.

• The County's then lead consultant, Ron Alhfeldt, of P&D Aviation, in a January 8-9, 2000 television interview on OCN's Politically Speaking estimated that 5 million people from Orange County "are forced to use LAX" each year.

• EIR 573, Technical Report 17, Table 4-2 "Existing and Projected Air Service Deficiency in Orange County" gives the "Orange County Passenger Deficiency" (passengers using all other airports including LAX, Long Beach and Ontario) as 5.0 MAP. On this basis, the use of LAX would be just over 4 MAP.

• Planners at the Southern California Association of Governments, SCAG, estimated that 5 MAP of Orange County origin/destination passengers in 2000 use other regional airports, primarily LAX and ONT.  This confirms the EIR figure above, and puts OC use of LAX at slightly over 4 MAP with less than 1 MAP using Ontario.

Combining these five sources, would result in an estimated OC use of LAX in 2000 at close to 5 million annual passengers.  All information is as of July 6, 2001. See below for more recent data.

Click here for a different projection from Los Angeles World Airways.

Click here for a companion 1993 study at Ontario Airport.

Click here for the website's later August 2002 estimates of passengers by airport for 2000 and 2001.

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