Week of March 30 - April 5, 2009
Regional summary: Air travel down 14 percent in 2009
For the first two months of 2009, the six airports that comprise the Southern California Association of Governments, SCAG region served 14 percent fewer passengers than in the same period in 2008.
Of the six airports- LAX, John Wayne, Bob Hope, Ontario, Long Beach and Palm Springs - Long Beach was the only one to post an increase.
LAX traffic was off by 13 percent. The other regional airports saw larger drops in traffic as airlines tended to concentrate service at their major hubs.
Palmdale City Council moves to develop shuttered airport - LA Times
Asserting more control over the effort to attract airline service to the Antelope Valley, the Palmdale City Council has authorized the creation of an
aviation department and commission to oversee development of the now-closed Palmdale Regional Airport.
The council's action Wednesday night will greatly reduce the role played by Los Angeles World Airports, which shuttered the commercial airport and
removed its staff in February after decades of frustration trying to provide passenger service.
Eight airlines have come and gone from the facility since the early 1970s -- the latest being United, which canceled its four daily flights to San
Francisco on Dec. 6 after almost 18 months of operation. The carrier's planes were less than a third full, well below the anticipated level of 50%.
Los Angeles World Airports officials contend that it might take years, if not decades, before the travel market is strong enough in the Antelope
Valley to support an airline -- a position that Palmdale officials dispute. They say that airfares were too high, the destinations too few and that Los
Angeles officials failed to develop a large untapped market of travelers in the Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys.
Debt Threatens Takeover of Midway Airport - The Wall Street Journal
An investment group that contracted to take over Chicago's Midway Airport is unlikely to meet a Monday deadline to pay the city $2.52 billion, people
familiar with the talks said, marking a new setback for airport privatization efforts in the U.S.
Mayor Richard M. Daley must now decide whether to extend the consortium's deadline to make the lump-sum payment or cancel the deal and keep the
group's $126 million deposit.
The consortium, which includes a division of Citigroup Inc., John Hancock Life Insurance Co. and a private consulting firm tied to Canada's Vancouver Airport, won a privatization bid Sept. 30 for a 99-year lease. Midway is Chicago's second-largest airfield and the 25th biggest U.S.airport by traffic.
The global credit crisis and the deal's rich valuation have made it difficult to get financing for the deal, people familiar with the transaction said.
Before Chicago launched the offering last year, it won support from airlines that serve Midway.
Around the U.S., other local officials have been hoping the Midway deal will blaze a new path for financing airports. In Toledo, Ohio, Republican mayoral
candidate Jim Moody cited Midway when he proposed selling a share in the local airport to investors.
The U.S. is the exception among developed countries in keeping its airfields in the hands of cities and states. Britain, France, Mexico, China and many
other countries have raised billions of dollars by selling stakes in airports to private investors.
Website Editor: In 2004, Orange County Supervisor Chuck Smith sought to sell Orange County's John Wayne Airport but was told that there were legal obstacles. Earlier this year, the Long Beach City Council briefly looked at the possibility of selling or leasing that city's airport.
Could JetBlue depart LB? Press-Telegram
Officials say the carrier is weary of airport improvements' slow pace.
Citing frustrations with the slow pace of improvements at Long Beach Airport, a JetBlue executive said Wednesday that the airline cannot rule out leaving or reducing services at the city-owned airport.
Company spokeswoman Jenny Dervin said the carrier is not formally considering leaving the airport but that "everything is on the table," as it evaluates its Southern California strategy.
Dervin said the carrier has grown weary of the pace of improvements at the city-owned airport. The company wants a new terminal to replace temporary trailers and a new parking structure.
"Our expectations were that Long Beach would absolutely be a JetBlue anchor for our West Coast operations, and all of the things that are associated with that - first-class terminal, parking for our customers and the ability to grow responsibly and have a great community partner," Dervin said of when JetBlue began service at the airport in 2000. "What we have today is barely better than what we started with."
The economic recession has forced city officials to consider scaling back their plan to expand the terminal from the current 56,320 square feet to even smaller than the currently proposed 89,995 square feet, said airport spokeswoman Sharon Diggs-Jackson.
The terminal expansion has been whittled down since it was first proposed seven years ago, from 133,000 square feet to 103,000 square feet, then to 97,545 square feet before the City Council finally settled on 89,995 square feet.
FAA: U.S. passenger count to drop 9% - USA Today
The Federal Aviation Administration predicts that nearly 9% fewer passengers will board major U.S. airlines for domestic flights this year, and that traffic on international flights will also decline as the bleak economy curbs business travel and vacation plans.
The FAA's 2009 projections, released in a report Tuesday, match airlines' grim outlook. The major carriers have been cutting capacity in the face of a travel slowdown blamed on the recession. But the agency sees the downturn lasting only through 2009.
The FAA expects domestic boardings on major U.S. airlines to fall 8.8%, and 2.4% internationally in 2009. Including smaller regional carriers, enplanements on U.S. routes are expected to drop 7.8% this year — a substantial decline compared with 2008's 1.5% year-over-year dip.
But the agency says that traffic will pick up again in 2010, with domestic boardings growing 2.3% a year to reach 690.2 million by 2025. International boardings on the big carriers and smaller regionals will grow 4.3% a year from 2010 through 2025.
High Desert logistics hub pushes on - The San Bernardino Sun
Dougall Agan faces an uphill battle. Agan's gargantuan Global Access project in Victorville is fighting a recession that some economists say will change consumer habits as we know them.
But Agan and his business partners are pressing onward, and he says he's as optimistic as ever that the Southern California Logistics Airport is poised for success when the economy rebounds.
Conceptual designs show the airport as a logistics magnet where trucks, planes and trains can meet and switch cargo, and where multi-million-dollar aircraft are maintained and thousands of pallets of consumer goods are stored every week before shipment.
Air cargo has dropped about 25 percent at the airport compared to one year ago, estimated Jim Worsham, an aviation consultant for Southern California Logistics Airport.
Recession or not, Agan still envisions 60 million square feet of commercial building space for the airport - an infrastructure and facilities investment worth $3 billion when finished and which could be responsible for creating up to 43,000 jobs.
Nearly 3 million square feet have been constructed.
March Air Reserve Base, San Bernardino International Airport and LA/Ontario International Airport are all competing for slices of the massive tonnage in air cargo experts predict will need to enter and leave the region over the coming decades.
Week of March 23 - March 29, 2009
Air travel slump catches up with San Diego
After weathering 2008 in fairly good shape, down only 1.1 percent in traffic for the year, San Diego's Lindbergh Field is off to a slow start in 2009.
Passengers totaled 1,191,493 in February, 13.9 percent fewer than for the same month last year.
For the first two months of 2009, SAN's total traffic is down 13.9 percent.
Long Beach Airport continues to buck regional downtrend
Long Beach airport served 200,237 passengers in February, a 0.5 percent increase over February 2007.
Year-to-date, traffic at LGB is up by 4.4 percent.
Long Beach airport's performance is in dramatic contrast with the severe slump observed at nearby airports including LAX, Ontario and Orange County's John Wayne Airport.
Cross-field taxiway OKd for LAX - LA Times
The project is intended to help handle the new generation of large airliners, including the Airbus A380.
Los Angeles airport officials Monday approved construction of a key modernization project at LAX and took steps to shore up the finances of Van Nuys Airport, which has been operating at a deficit for at least a decade.
The Board of Airport Commissioners unanimously awarded an $82-million contract to build a cross-field taxiway for Los Angeles International Airport that would make it easier for aircraft to move between the north and south runway complexes.
The wider taxiway, which will be located west of the Tom Bradley International Terminal, is designed to handle the next generation of large commercial aircraft, such as the Airbus A-380, the Boeing 747-8 and the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. The current cross-field route is so narrow that no other aircraft can use it when an Airbus A380 occupies the taxiway.
The cross-field taxiway, which is scheduled to begin construction in May, is one of several projects in the first phase of the long-awaited LAX modernization plan.
In other action Monday, commissioners unanimously increased the fuel delivery fee from 3 cents to 11 cents a gallon for fuel companies that deliver aviation gas and jet fuel to Van Nuys Airport.
Destination Lindbergh Draft Concept Plan now available on www.destinationlindbergh.com
The
Board of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority has accepted
for public distribution the Destination Lindbergh Draft Concept Plan
for San Diego International Airport (SDIA). The Airport Authority Board
accepted the Draft Concept at its March 23rd public hearing and further
directed that an invitation be sent to all stakeholders for future
planning, and that the Concept Plan establish benchmarks for
operations, an economic turnaround and transit ridership. Six
Board members voted in favor, two Board members voted against, with one
Board member
absent.
Destination Lindbergh was a comprehensive process to determine how best to achieve three goals: (1) optimize the airport, (2) improve transit to the airport and region-wide and (3) reduce traffic congestion in the vicinity of the airport.
The Draft Concept Plan takes into account ground transportation, intermodal facility, passenger terminal, airfield/airspace, environment, financial feasibility and regional development.
Destination Lindbergh was a comprehensive process to determine how best to achieve three goals: (1) optimize the airport, (2) improve transit to the airport and region-wide and (3) reduce traffic congestion in the vicinity of the airport.
The Draft Concept Plan takes into account ground transportation, intermodal facility, passenger terminal, airfield/airspace, environment, financial feasibility and regional development.
LAX and ONT down in February
Los Angeles World Airports passenger traffic for February lagged February 2008 by 14.8 percent. The drop was 14.2 percent for domestic traffic and 16.5 percent for international.
For the first two months of 2009, LAX total traffic was off by 13.0 percent.
Ontario airport passenger count was down 33.5 percent from last February. Year to date, the total passenger volume fell by 32.35 percent from the same period in 2008.
Week of March 16 - March 22, 2009
JWA updates: Air traffic down, new flights coming - OC Register
February air traffic: Airline passenger traffic dropped 17 percent compared in February compared to the same month in 2008. About four percent of the drop was due to the loss of Aloha Airlines, which was operating from JWA in February 2008 but went bankrupt and ceased operations the following April.
Virgin America will start service to San Francisco on April 30, followed on May 9 by matching service from Southwest Airlines. Airport spokeswoman Jenny Wedge said negotiations are moving forward with Air Canada to finalize plans for service by early to mid summer. Analysts have said the most likely destination is Vancouver or other cities in Western Canada.
The airport’s Improvement Program is proceeding. Bids for construction of the new Terminal C are expected within two weeks. Construction is slated to start this summer.
President won't be on view at airport, Long Beach says - Press-Telegram
There will be no public viewing opportunites of Obama or his jet, according to a city advisory issued Tuesday night.
Both of the outdoor balconies, located on the second floor of the terminal building, will be closed to the public.
In preparation for the president's arrival and departure, security measures will be strictly enforced, according to the city. However, the airport will be open to passengers and fully operational both days.
Passengers traveling during the late afternoon today and Thursday may experience short delays, according to Sharon Diggs-Jackson, the airport spokeswoman.
Website Editor: Air Force One made past Southern California visits at the military air bases at Los Alamitos and El Toro.
As travel declines, aircraft 'boneyard' in Victorville fills up - LA Times
With the economy in a tailspin, aircraft "boneyards" across the country are filling up with Boeing 747s and other jetliners no longer needed to ferry passengers. Call it airline limbo.
Southern California Logistics Airport in Victorville, formerly George Air Force Base, is now one of the nation's busiest boneyards.
The latest rush of airliners to Victorville began in October. Before long 100 aircraft were on the tarmac, then 150, and by last week the roster had swelled to nearly 200, making the outpost more crowded at times than Los Angeles International Airport.
December 2008 Airline Traffic Data: System Traffic Down 5.7 Percent in December from 2007 and Down 3.7 Percent in 2008 - U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics
The number of scheduled domestic and international passengers on U.S. airlines in December 2008 declined by 5.7 percent from December 2007,the Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) reported. December was the 10th consecutive month with a decrease in passengers from 2007.
For the full year of 2008, the number of scheduled domestic and international passengers on U.S. airlines declined by 3.7 percent from 2007, dropping to 741.4 million, 28.2 million fewer than a year earlier. It was the first year-to-year decline since 2002 and the fewest number of annual system passengers since 2005.
U.S. airlines carried 4.3 percent fewer domestic passengers and 1.2 percent more international passengers during 2008 than in 2007.
The combined domestic and international system load factor of 79.5 percent in 2008 was down 0.4 load factor points from last year’s record for the year .
Los Angeles International Airport ranked fifth in the nation in the BTS list of airport traffic on U.S. carriers. The BTS data does not include foregn airlines.
Week of March 9 - March 15, 2009
El Toro and Great Park from the balloon
Editor and his family recently visited the Great Park's "preview park" to enjoy the free seasonal ice skating and a balloon ride paid for, we assume, out of the funds available for building the park. We went on a Saturday morning and there was no wait for either the balloon ride or to get skates and hit the ice. It was good fun.
For those who have not visited the park to enjoy the free amenities, and have not seen the project seven years after the passage of Measure W, here is a view taken from the great balloon's gondola with some highlights labeled.
A. Boxed trees
B. Ample free parking
C. Hanger used for free ice skating
D. Picnic tables with shade umbrellas and enclosures
E. Historical timeline
F. RV storage area
Click photo for a larger view.
Palm Springs Airport traffic is down
Passenger traffic at Palm Springs International Airport fell by 14.3 percent in February when compared with the same month last year.
It was the airport's worst February since 2004.
John Wayne Airport continues multi-year slide
John Wayne February passenger volume was 583,076 or 17.0 percent fewer travelers than in February 2008. The number was 20.5 percent fewer than in February 2007.
It was the airport's slowest month since February 2002, shortly after the 9-11 attacks.
Air carrier operations were off by 13.5 percent for the month and general aviation was down 47.3 percent.
The Orange County airport has plenty of company from other airports in the region with most showing sliding passenger volume.
Fortunately, Orange County is not saddled with the multi-billion dollar debt it would have incurred had county officials proceeded to build a proposed huge second airport at El Toro.
LAX may not meet deadline for federal safety standards, report says - LA Times
Los Angeles International Airport and 10 other major flight centers in the United States might not be able to meet a 2015 deadline for federal runway safety standards sought by Congress to reduce the risk of aircraft accidents, according to a new government study.
The report released this month by the inspector general's office for the U.S. Department of Transportation takes issue with the two northern runways at LAX, which have safety zones -- buffer areas of open land -- that are smaller than what federal regulations have required for airports since 1988.
Nancy Castles, a spokeswoman for Los Angeles World Airports, said the agency has been working with the Federal Aviation Administration to address concerns about runway safety areas at LAX, including a current study to evaluate options and develop recommendations.
Safety areas must support the weight of commercial aircraft and measure 1,000 feet long by 500 feet wide at each end of a runway. In addition, a 250-foot buffer, measured from the runway's centerline, is required for each side. The rectangular zones give landing and departing aircraft a safety margin to reduce the risk of an accident from undershooting, overrunning or veering off a runway.
The report also mentions Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, where delays in meeting safety zone standards had serious repercussions in March 2000, when a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 overran the runway on landing, crashed through a blast fence and ended up in a street. Forty-four passengers and crew members were hurt.
Website Editor: John Wayne Airport Safety Compatibility Zones are defined in an Airport Layout Plan approved by the FAA in March 2005 for a "Medium General Aviation Runway" (length 4,000 to 5,999 feet) and meet the 1000 foot standard..
Carbon Plex H-25 Preservation Coating Installed at John Wayne Airport - Asphalt Contractor
John Wayne Airport (JWA) in Los Angeles recently completed reconstruction of its primary runway.
Because the airport is in close proximity to a neighborhood, its usually closed between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. This presented the challenge of developing and installing a protective coating that could be placed and achieve full cure within this time window, so heavy jet traffic could resume operations.
Website Editor: The article details how the 68,000 square yards of coating proceeded overnight under pressure of a $10,000 per minute penalty.
Week of March 2 - March 8, 2009
FAA seeks analysis document from Burbank airport - Associated Press
The Federal Aviation Administration says the Bob Hope Airport needs to submit an environmental analysis before the agency can consider its proposal to ban late-night flights in Burbank.
The FAA sent a letter Thursday informing the airport that the analysis document was needed to complete its application. The Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority, which voted last month to seek the ban, has 30 days to submit the final document.
The airport has said a ban on most late-night flights would reduce noise in surrounding Burbank neighborhoods. Airlines observe a voluntary ban from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.
Other airports in the region—including nearby Van Nuys Airport—have complained that the move would just shift the noise burden to them.
Parking is Long Beach Airport priority - Press-Enterprise
For the Long Beach Airport, providing parking for thousands of its daily customers will be one of the most critical issues it will face in 2009.
Right now, roughly 45 percent of the airport's 4,935 parking spaces are in a remote lot on Boeing property, which airport officials lease month to month.
But recent plans by Long Beach Studios LLC to purchase the former Boeing 717 manufacturing site and the parking lot the airport has been leasing have prompted airport officials to expedite a multimillion dollar parking garage expansion that had been experiencing delays.
Airport officials are keeping their fingers crossed on an $85 million to $88 million stimulus package submission that could fund several projects, including a new 3,200-space parking garage that would be outfitted with solar panels and retrofitting the existing garage, which would also have solar panels.
If stimulus money is not available, airport officials will look into the bond market sometime approaching summer and, it is hoped, break ground in mid-to-late summer.
One-woman bureaucracy keeps maglev hopes alive - Las Vegas Sun
Despite political hay over it, fast train is far from reality.
The proposed $12 billion magnetic levitation train connecting Las Vegas to Anaheim, Calf., conjures images of engineers, administrators and environmental experts huddled over room-sized maps and computer modeling.
In fact, headquarters for the California-Nevada Super Speed Train Commission is in Richann Bender’s suburban tract home, a couple of miles from U.S. 95 on the west side of town.
Bender, 60, is the commission’s executive director and only staffer — and an unpaid one at that. She retired from her Las Vegas city job last year and has headed the project for free since.
For the proposal to move forward now, the commission needs to find $7 million to complete an environmental study of the route. Next would come persuading the federal government to fund much of the $12 billion in construction costs. (Orange County jurisdictions and nearby agencies are contributing $2 million toward the environmental study).
The Federal Railroad Administration held a competition for regional maglev projects in 2001, but did not choose the Las Vegas application. (In the end, no projects were funded.)
Bender pushes on. She expects to get a salary from the commission someday, but that’s contingent on the project moving forward.
She believes that will happen and finds the current circumstances the most promising in years. In her view, a maglev train is true to the spirit of Obama’s stimulus bill: It would create construction jobs in the short term and modernize the United States’ crumbling and obsolete infrastructure.
Critics question why a train would connect Las Vegas to Anaheim, rather than denser Los Angeles. But commission leaders say Anaheim is more committed — the city’s mayor is a commission member — and arguably needs it more. The maglev would stop in Ontario on the way to Las Vegas from Anaheim, giving coastal residents quicker access to the less-crowded airport.
Bleak outlook for flights at Palmdale airport - LA Times
The resumption of passenger service at Palmdale Regional Airport might take years, even decades, if the airline industry cannot recover strongly from the current economic recession, a new report by the Los Angeles airport authority predicts.
The grim prognosis for the struggling airport was presented Monday to the Board of Airport Commissioners.
Palmdale airport was closed in February, two months after United Airlines canceled its four daily flights to San Francisco. United was the eighth airline to come and go from Palmdale since the early 1970s, when the Los Angeles airport department began buying 17,500 acres of vacant land for an intercontinental jet port that was never built.
The 36-page report blamed the airport's lack of success on four factors: long drives for travelers who don't live in Palmdale and Lancaster; a limited flight schedule compared with competing airports; an inability to attract military and government travelers from Air Force installations and aerospace firms in the region; and one of the worst economic downturns in the history of the airline industry.
Bob Hope Airport part of January regional slump
Passenger traffic at Burbank's Bob Hope Airport fell 20.6 percent from its January 2008 level.
The airport served 348,274 passengers in January 2009. It was the worst January posted since 2002 when 341,124 passengers used BUR in the aftermath of 9-11.
For the six airports making up the SCAG region - LAX, Orange County, Ontario, Burbank, Long Beach and Palm Springs - total passenger traffic in January dropped by 12.2 percent from the same month in 2008. Fewer than 6 million travelers used the airports, a low overall level which has not been seen since the months immediately following the terror attacks.
SANDAG endorses overhaul of airport - The San Diego Union-Tribune
A regional planning agency endorsed plans for a multibillion-dollar overhaul of Lindbergh Field, with several officials calling it the only plausible answer to San Diego's growing aviation needs.
Board members with the San Diego Association of Governments unanimously voted in favor of shifting most passenger services to the north side of the airport and closer to mass transit and Interstate 5.
At the SANDAG hearing, lawyer Leon Campbell of La Jolla touted a novel proposal to build a three-runway airport in the southern waters of San Diego Bay. The proposal was not pursued.
San Diego County Regional Airport Authority officials say improvements in aircraft technology and design, along with other measures, will stretch Lindbergh Field's life span past 2025.
