Allegiant Air leaving Long Beach Airport - Contra Costa Times
Allegiant Air is leaving Long Beach, the second carrier to scuttle service to the city since Spring.
The carrier, which began service out of Long Beach Airport in July 2010, announced Friday it is giving up three daily slots by Nov. 28, though other airlines are expected to pick up those slots shortly.
Airport officials said they will put the spaces into a lottery for interested airlines within days, and the spaces will then be assigned randomly before the end of October.
When Frontier Air ended service in April, JetBlue and Allegiant won the airline's two slots and began flights a few weeks later, maintaining the airport's legally mandated maximum of 41 daily commuter flights.
Southwest wants to add two JWA flights - Daily Pilot
Other carriers serving Orange County plan to cut back six flights a day.
Southwest Airlines will add two daily flights at John Wayne Airport if the Orange County Board of Supervisors approves the airport's 2012 capacity plan Tuesday.
With the added flights, Southwest will further dominate JWA, including at the new Terminal C, which is set to open Nov. 14.
This year's distribution of flights comes as officials ramp up for negotiations about the airport's passenger cap and other limits, which expire in 2015.
While Southwest is adding flights, other carriers are dropping them. U.S. Airways, United Airlines, WestJet and Mesa Air are all scaling back their departures. Those four airlines would relinquish their rights to about six flights per day.
Also in the JWA capacity plan is a new carrier, Compass Airlines, which plans to operate Delta Connection's commuter flights.
Airlines ask for fewer seats at JWA
John Wayne Airport management has asked the Board of Supervisors to approve the allocation of 11,735,392 passenger seats to the airlines serving the airport next year. That is the number requested by the airlines. It is the smallest request since the airport's allowed capacity was increased in the 2003-4 Plan Year.
A decrease in the number of seats that the airlines seek to fill generally translates into fewer actual passengers.
The airport manager has recommended that two average daily flights requested by Southwest and Alaska Airlines be denied.
In 2012, the airport will list one new carrier, Compass Airlines. Compass is part of the Delta group and currently flies regional aircraft in the midwest.
LAX - The airport that devoured the region
August 2011 data shows total LAX passenger volume this year ahead of 2010's 8 month volume by 5.6 percent.
For domestic travel, the airport was up, year-to-date, by 5.9 percent. That amounts to 1.7 million more passengers served this year.
The increase occurred as several other regional airports posted decreased usage. Ontario was down by 150,000 passengers. John Wayne was down by about 60,000. Burbank, through July, saw a drop of about 114,000. Where did they go? Well, to Los Angeles it appears, where airlines have been concentrating service.
After years of local groups promoting "regionalization," to put the noise and pollution in someone else's back yard, centralization has taken over.
September 19 - September 25, 2011
FBI raids San Bernardino airport agency as part of investigation - LA Times
The FBI on Wednesday raided the San Bernardino International Airport Authority and Inland Valley Development Agency in San Bernardino, agencies accused of rampant mismanagement and questionable financial oversight in a
recent county grand jury investigation.
Both agencies oversee the development of the airport, the old Norton Air Force Base, which was shuttered in 1994 and converted to civilian use.
Among the findings in the civil grand jury report was that airport developer Scot Spencer received millions of dollars worth of questionable contracts from the airport authority. Spencer is a convicted felon who served time in federal prison for bankruptcy fraud and was banned from the aviation industry by the U.S. Department of Transportation.
San Diego adds Mexico flights - media release
Mexican airline Volaris is now at SDIA with convenient nonstop daily service between San Diego and Mexico City and between San Diego and Guadalajara.
JWA traffic picks up in August
Airline passenger traffic at John Wayne Airport increased in August 2011 as compared to August 2010. In August 2011, the Airport
served 802,534 passengers, an increase of 0.1% when compared to the August 2010 passenger traffic count of 802,065.
Year-to-date travel was down by 1 percent.
Commercial aircraft operations decreased 0.4%, while Commuter aircraft operations decreased 25.6% when compared to the levels
recorded in August 2010.
[BUR] Airport numbers slide for fifth month in a row - Burbank Leader
LAX continues to see improvement, but other airports also suffer.
For the fifth month in a row, the number of passengers at Bob Hope Airport dropped below budget projections in July, decreasing by 3.3% compared to the same period last year, officials reported.
While the decline was not as bad as the previous four months — during which passenger rates tumbled by more than 5% each month — the downward trend continues to eat into airport revenues, according to a report issued this week.
Parking revenues, which track closely with the number of passengers using the airfield, were down 3% to $1.55 million in July, compared to $1.6 million during the same period last year.
At Bob Hope Airport, 371,837 passengers arrived or departed in July, compared with 384,647 passengers in July 2010, according to a report to the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority.
The rates dipped 1% at John Wayne Airport in Orange County, but plummeted 9.6% at Ontario Airport.
Los Angeles International Airport, on the other hand, reported a 6.6% increase.
New flights from San Diego to Mammoth begin Dec. 15 - North County Times
The latest flight to be added at Lindbergh Field will be a daily nonstop to Mammoth Mountain, the ski resort announced today.
The flights, on 66-seat regional jets operated by SkyWest Airlines, will begin Dec. 15 and run through the winter season, allowing skiers to forego a nearly eight-hour drive from San Diego to Mammoth Lakes.
Four weekly flights will also be operated out of John Wayne Airport in Orange County.
San Diego's airport has added a number of new flights recently, adding Guadalajara as a destination and additional runs to Honolulu, Las Vegas and Mexico City.
September 12 - September 18, 2011
Groups hold fundraisers as JWA agreement renegotiations loom - OC Register
The John Wayne Airport settlement agreement, which caps the number of passengers at 10.8 million by 2015, expires Dec. 31 in 2015. And in anticipation of the settlement renegotiations, AirFair and Airport Working Group are gearing up fundraising efforts this month.
AirFair’s Melinda Seely, whose motto is “10.8 [and] Shut the Gate,” tells me her group’s fundraiser is the first of its kind for the eight-year-old organization. The group has previously gathered contributions by sending periodic newsletters, but has a new sense of urgency with the looming settlement expiration.
AirFair’s hoping to raise between $8,000 and $10,000 to hire an aviation lawyer to represent the interests of their group and the Stop Polluting Our Newport (SPON) group at the upcoming JWA settlement agreement talks. SPON is an original signator of the agreement.
Both groups are hoping to maintain the agreements for reduction, passenger loads, curfew and hold growth of JWA as a whole.
Seeley anticipates the negotiations will begin sometime this fall or early winter.
Another local organization that will be a player in the upcoming talks – Airport Working Group. AWG, another original signatory on the JWA agreement, is having a fundraiser in Newport.
Website Editor: This El Toro Info website was started to support the efforts of community activists who - during the El Toro reuse controversy - sought to limit airport environmental impacts on their communities. During the El Toro debate, there also was a strong pro-airport side arguing for increased aviation service in Orange County. We wonder who will be representing the flying public in the upcoming negotiations.
September 5 - September 11, 2011
10 years after 9/11, the airline industry is looking up - LA Times Business
The terrorist attacks began a decade of economic misery for the nation's air carriers and increasingly intrusive airport screening for passengers. But profits are rising as fliers grudgingly accept heightened security measures.
The terrorist attacks that shocked the nation 10 years ago today devastated few industries as much as the airline business.
In the decade that followed, U.S. air carriers have been battered by a sharp drop in demand, soaring fuel prices, wars, an outbreak of the deadly SARS virus and a stinging recession — forces that have led to billions of dollars in industry losses.
Taxpayers and passengers have also had to pay in cash, delays and frustration: Air passengers shell out $1.8 billion annually in new airline fees to help fund $57 billion in airport security improvements mandated by the federal government over the last decade.
The resulting gantlet of airport screening measures has made flying more time-consuming and burdensome.
Yet even as the travel industry marks a decade of financial strain, the future seems a bit brighter for airlines. Airline profits have increased marginally over the last year, a reflection of growing demand for air travel and the public's grudging acceptance of the heightened security measures.
9-11 impact on air travel in Southern California - El Toro Info Site report
In 2001, regional planners and officials expected air travel to continue to grow indefinitely.
That year, the Southern California Association of Governments predicted that 167 million passengers would be served by local airports in 2025, a forecast that is now being trimmed to 146 million by 2035. (See report below)
Palmdale and El Toro airports, once considered essential to serve growing demand, have been eliminated from the projections. There is insufficient volume to support additional airports and several wanna-be major airports, like Ontario and former military airbases in the Inland Empire, are struggling.
In the first half of 2001, the six airports in the region - LAX, SNA, ONT, BUR, LGB and PSP - saw 43,246,934 passengers. In the first half of 2011, 10 years later, the total was down by 5.7 percent to 40,773,889.
John Wayne Airport opens North Commuter Terminal - JWA media release
John Wayne Airport (JWA) celebrated the completion of the new North Commuter Terminal (Gates 1A, B and C) with passengers departing on Delta Air Lines' 7:05 a.m. flight to Salt Lake City. The new North Commuter Terminal can be reached from Terminal A.
Construction of the North Commuter Terminal is part of the larger Airport Improvement Program that began in 2006. A major component of the Program is construction of a new Terminal C and improvements to the existing Terminals A and B. Permanent commuter facilities are being constructed north of Terminal A and south of Terminal C and will replace temporary commuter facilities. Construction of Terminal C and the new south commuter terminal is expected to be complete in mid-November 2011.
Commuter service at JWA is provided by Delta Connection and United Express. Commuter airlines serve a variety of destinations and differ from commercial airlines based on the number of passenger seats in, and the weight of, the aircraft.
Website Editor: The Salt Lake City flight is operated on an Airbus 319 which typically holds around 124 seats and is larger and heavier than commuter aircraft, defined in the Newport Beach Settlement Agreement as holding a maximum of 70 seats. In 2010, the number of commuter passengers at JWA declined by 63 percent from the previous year. In the first half of 2011, the number was down by an additional 16 percent.
JWA party a terminally bad idea - OC Register editorial
Orange County Supervisor Shawn Nelson is right to criticize the idea to hold a party at taxpayer expense for the soon-to-be finished terminal and parking structure at John Wayne Airport. Does there need to be a party at all? If anything, airport vendors and contractors – private companies – and interested community groups should fund such an activity, not taxpayers.
At Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, airport staff announced plans to spend $50,000 for an event to commemorate the completion of the new terminal and parking structure. The supervisors have authority over the airport and thus must bless the party budget.
Mr. Nelson told us: “People are out of work and struggling to put food on the table, and we are going to throw a party, a party for someone who was contracted and paid to do a job? That is not right.”
REPORT: 146 million to crowd SoCal airports by 2035 - Press-Enterprise
There may be 130 million to 146 million people a year looking for a flight into or out of Southern California by 2035, but that's still at least 20 million fewer passengers than what the Southern California Association of Governments had expected when the agency crafted its last forecast for air travel in the area.
Every four years, the group made up of local leaders in Southern California, except for San Diego, updates its predictions for what the future holds for the region's transportation landscape taking a long-term view in order to assist in regional planning.
The March Inland Port airport on former March Air Force Base property near Riverside and Moreno Valley is expected to have 600,000 annual passengers by 2035, for example.
Gary Gosliga, director of the March Inland Port said early forecasts made in 2004 guessed the airport could expect to see 8 million passengers annually.
San Bernardino International Airport was expected to have 9.4 million passengers by 2035 in SCAG's last forecast. That expectation has been reduced in the newest plan to 2.8 million passengers. So has the expectation for Victorville's Southern California Logistics Airport at the former George Air Force Base that dropped from 2.9 million passengers by 2035 in the last report to 700,000 in the latest.
Other forecasts had no change. The forecast for LAX remained capped at 78.9 million, as large as it can grow based on a legal settlement between the airport and neighboring communities. Same with Orange County's John Wayne Airport, Burbank's Bob Hope Airport and Long Beach Airport, which can only grow so much.
The number of passengers expected to use Ontario International Airport is only slightly less than the 31.6 million forecast when the figure was based on the maximum capacity of its two runways and ample space to build a another terminal after the existing twin terminals welcome 10 million passengers for two years in a row.
Website Editor: Click here for previous SCAG forecasts. We question the wisdom, but not the political correctness, of SCAG using caps that will expire when projecting capacity at airports such as LAX, Burbank and John Wayne. At LAX the 78.9 MAP cap was achieved by temporarily removing passenger gates from service. The John Wayne cap expires in 2015 and then can be increased after completing an EIR.
August 29 - September 4, 2011
Ontario counts shrinking; city still wants control - Press-Enterprise
The city of Ontario has made an "attractive and generous" cash offer to buy Ontario International Airport from the city of Los Angeles, but four months later the city has yet to hear anything from the office of LA's mayor.
It's one of the latest efforts by the city of Ontario to regain control of the airport that has shrunk in size by a third since 2007.
Passenger traffic at Ontario airport had seemed to be leveling off. Between 2007 and 2009, 2.3 million fewer passengers used the airport, a 32 percent drop. Traffic dropped again in 2010 but it was less than 2 percent. This year, there was little change in the first three months compared to the same time last year.
But traffic has dropped each month since and in both June and July the number of travelers using Ontario airport dropped by nearly 10 percent compared to the same month a year prior.
Ontario City Councilman Alan Wapner wouldn't say how much his city had offered to buy the airport but indicated it was a large amount. Los Angeles World Airports, a city agency, owns and operates both Ontario airport and Los Angeles International Airport.
The city of Ontario and San Bernardino County officials have blamed LAWA's management for Ontario airport's woes.
Wapner, who has been leading the efforts to regain control of the airport, said the pattern of traffic losses at Ontario is bound to worsen.
Because airlines have cut back flights at the airport, Inland residents looking for travel are getting in the habit of going elsewhere, no longer checking to see if Ontario might be an option, he said.
"Eventually it's going to lead to Ontario closing," he said.
An Inland goal to have control of the airport by July 1 came and went, and a state bill proposed by Sen. Bob Dutton, R-Rancho Cucamonga, that would have created an Inland airport authority was pulled after Ontario city leaders were encouraged that negotiations with Los Angeles World Airports would occur.
Negotiations didn't happen, though, said Wapner. At its last city council meeting, the council discussed using litigation to get the airport, he said.
LAX up, ONT down in July
Passenger traffic at LAX was up by 6.65 percent in July over the same month in 2010. Year to date, the airport has handled 5.63 percent more passengers.
At LA/Ontario airport, July traffic was down 9.64 percent and minus 4.31 percent for the year to date.
