Costs rise for LAX concourse plans - Daily Breeze
Construction hasn't even started, but costs have already increased by more than $12 million to examine the future site of a new concourse at Los Angeles International Airport.
The Board of Airport Commissioners on Monday signed off on a series of contract amendments that call for environmental reviews and underground mapping for the future site of the Midfield Concourse, a $1.2billion construction project set for completion in January 2012.
The Los Angeles City Council agreed in August to build eight to 10 new contact gates at the Midfield Concourse, just west of the Tom Bradley International Terminal, which could eventually be expanded to hold up to 40 gates.
Website Editor: The prospects for a new terminal with 40 gates appears contrary to current agreements to limit LAX to 78 MAP - by reducing the number of gates - and SCAG's forecast that the airport will stay at that level until at least 2035. A similar situation exists at John Wayne Airport where a new terminal and six gates are being added with little recognition given to the potential for expanded service.
Senate approves Amtrak package - ASSOCIATED PRESS
Money-losing Amtrak got a vote of confidence from the Senate yesterday with approval of $11.4 billion to keep the national passenger railway running for the next six years.
The bill, approved 70-22, also outlines steps to reduce Amtrak's reliance on taxpayer dollars, with a goal of cutting operating costs by 40 percent over six years.
"When we give Amtrak the resources it needs, more Americans take the train," said bill sponsor Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, New Jersey Democrat. "When travelers choose the energy efficiency of rail over cars and planes, they reduce gridlock, help combat global warming and even reduce our reliance on foreign oil."
Amtrak, created by Congress in 1970, last year carried nearly 26 million passengers, a record.
JWA runways shut down after accident - OC Register
A private jet's landing gear caught fire during takeoff at John Wayne Airport on Monday, shutting down runways for more than an hour.
The damaged plane, which was removed at about 3:30 p.m., forced 10 flights to be diverted.
Small planes, which account for roughly 70 percent of operations at JWA, have historically accounted for the bulk of accidents and near-misses. A six-seat aircraft rolled off the runway five years ago because of landing-gear issues, and a student pilot died in 1998 when his Cessna crashed near a runway, among other incidents.
The last major incident involving a large aircraft occurred in 1981, when an Air California 737 crash-landed. None of the 109 people onboard were injured.
Past Octobers - OC Register Almananc (also on this website.)
On October 28, 1997, San Diego Superior Court Judge Judith McConnell ruled against the County. In a major victory for airport opponents, the judge found that the County “abused its discretion” by failing to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) when it approved the airport project.
Gridlock over how to end flight gridlock - Christian Science Monitor
The airlines balk after the FAA proposes congestion pricing and flight caps for airports in the New York area.
There is a problem: record delays and congestion at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, which ripple through airports across the country. There was an apparent solution: a big meeting among the airlines, the airport managers, and federal regulators to address it.
The airlines, the airport managers, and . . . institutions enlisted to support them are outraged by what they see as failure by the Federal Aviation Administration to prevent the problem in the first place. On Friday, they blasted the FAA and, in particular, the agency's top two proposed solutions: congestion pricing, which would charge airlines more to land during peak periods, and mandatory caps that would reduce by 20 percent the current 100 departing flights per hour.
Anthony Shorris, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the region's three major airports [said], "It's a cheap, fast, easy purported solution that allows the federal government to walk away from its responsibilities to make America's air-traffic system what it should be."
At the center of the dispute is how quickly and safely the federal government can upgrade technology and make changes in air-traffic control to increase capacity at New York's airports.
Website Editor: If technology upgrades can increase the capacity of New York's airport, they also may increase the capacity of those in the Los Angeles basis.
Are alternate airports worth the drive? - SmarterTravel.com
Almost all travel mavens espouse the mantra of "flexibility" when searching for good deals-airfares, cruises, hotel accommodations, whatever-especially around the holiday season when prime seats/cabins/rooms sell out early and the pickings are slim. One of the standard "flexibility" recommendations is to consider alternate airports at either or both ends of your trip.
The writer comments on several airports including those in the LA basin. Poor public transportation is a common comment. A sample:
LA/Ontario International Airport: 35 miles from central L.A. Poor public transportation, too far for cabs. For downtown L.A., use it only in a pinch.
Unfair air fare – El Toro Info Site
We checked on how the heavily local government subsidized air fares from Palmdale to San Francisco compared with fares from other regional airports.
For a round trip to San Francisco on Tuesday January 15 and returning on January 17 - dates selected at random for advance purchase tickets - United Airlines’ website gave the following as its lowest available round trip fares including taxes.
LAX
128.80
Palm Springs 208.80
Bob Hope 231.80
Palmdale 260.30
Ontario 312.30
John Wayne 318.80
Long Beach No service to SFO – JetBlue flies to Oakland for 107.30 RT
Palm Springs 208.80
Bob Hope 231.80
Palmdale 260.30
Ontario 312.30
John Wayne 318.80
Long Beach No service to SFO – JetBlue flies to Oakland for 107.30 RT
United’s fares are low at LAX because it faces competition on the route from Alaska, American, Delta and US Air. Fares are high at John Wayne because the supply of seats is limited relative to demand.
This demonstrates how difficult it is to “regionalize” passengers away from a major airport like LAX with lots of choices, unless travelers live much closer to another airport or someone else, like an employer, is paying for the tickets.
Week of October 22 - October 28, 2007
Great Park may start small and build - OC Register
Some directors suggest focusing on expanding the balloon attraction rather than preparing the entire 1,347-acre site.
Some Great Park officials are thinking of producing a small section of the park now rather than focusing on preparing the whole 1,347-acre site right away.
One of their first ideas discussed last week at a Great Park board meeting is to expand the balloon attraction.
A strategy to develop the park in small sections stems from worries about funding for the park – of $200 million in developer fees paid by the Lennar Corp. and some small revenues from leasing out land – the Great Park Corp. is on track to finish the 2007-08 fiscal year with $66.3 million in the bank for park construction. The most recent park construction estimate is $1.1 billion.
Website Editor: Let's be clear about this website's position. We opposed El Toro airport as the wrong airport in the wrong place . . . unneeded, unwanted and unsafe. We supported non-aviation reuse of El Toro - initially ETRPA's mixed-use Millennium Plan, then Measure W's low density Orange County Central Park and Nature Preserve and then Irvine's more ambitious Great Park.
However, we have consistently spotlighted the rate at which Irvine spent park money on overhead, the costly international design competition, polls and studies and millions of dollars wasted on public relations.
Hemet's normally sleepy airport fills with firefighting planes - North County Times
Normally, the World War II-era air traffic control tower at Hemet-Ryan Airport stays empty, as the volume is so light that controllers aren't needed.
This week, the airport roared to life as it became a base for planes and helicopters flying out to douse nearby wildfires. To help guide the state firefighting aircraft, eight federal air traffic controllers and managers have been brought in from airports in and around the Inland Empire.
State fire officials had considered moving the air-attack base from Hemet-Ryan to March Air Reserve Base near Riverside, but decided last year to leave it in Hemet.
Council seeks stronger airport plan - Press-Telegram
A plan to reduce pollution, noise and other impacts of Long Beach Airport on surrounding neighborhoods doesn't have the muscle it should, some City Council members said this week.
During Tuesday's council meeting, city officials unveiled an implementation plan for a Green Airport and Neighborhood Protection Program, but the council voted 6-3 to wait to approve it until after some council members' concerns had been addressed.
The future of the airport has been a matter of much debate in recent years. The council rubber-stamped an environmental impact report last year that paved the way for a controversial expansion of the airport terminal from 56,320 square feet to 97,545 square feet. Opponents say the larger terminal could bring additional flights to Long Beach that would increase pollution and noise.
Gold Line benefits from LAX-expansion dread - Press-Enterprise
Opposition to a possible airport expansion in Los Angeles could inadvertently boost an effort to extend light rail service from Pasadena to LA/Ontario International Airport.
The result would be more transportation options for Inland commuters, officials said Wednesday. But they cautioned that extending the Metro Gold Line to the airport could be at least 20 years away.
Funding keeps high-speed rail project alive - LA Times
Despite lingering doubts about its future, a proposal to build a high-speed rail line between Southern California and San Francisco was kept alive Wednesday when the state Transportation Commission allocated $15.5 million for engineering and design work.
The money is a small fraction of the $40 billion that the system would cost to complete, but commissioners said they were not willing to pull the plug even though full financing had not been arranged.
The proposal calls for a 700-mile rail system in which trains traveling as fast as 220 mph whisk passengers from Southern California to the Bay Area in a little more than 2 1/2 hours. The project was proposed more than a decade ago but has yet to pick up steam.
Average air fares in the second quarter of 2007 were down 4.5 percent from the second quarter of 2006 and remained below the pre-9/11 high. - U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS)
Amongst Southern California airports, Long Beach bucked the national trend and reported a 0.9 percent increase from the second quarter of 2006.
Long Beach also showed the largest increase, 85.8 percent, of all airports studied for the 12 years 1995-2007. See the BTS report Table 10.
A chat with LAWA executive - San Bernardino County Sun
Gina Marie Lindsey was appointed executive director of Los Angeles World Airports in June. Lindsey, who brings 16 years of airport management experience to her new post, shared her thoughts recently about what's ahead for the aviation authority:
Q: What major tasks are ahead for you and for LAWA?
A: There are three things we're going to concentrate on: First, building relationships with our tenant base, internally and externally ...
Second, building the airports ... At LAX, we need to rehabilitate the terminals and the infrastructure, which is literally falling apart. At Ontario, it's about building the market.
Third, building a high-performance organization ... We've become quite a bureaucracy over the years because we're part of the city government and organizations have a lot of I's to dot and T's to cross and various procedures to go through that has added incredible lead time to actually doing anything.
Feds scrutinize John Wayne runway safety - OC Register
Though it has not witnessed any serious mishaps in recent years, John Wayne Airport is among a small group of the nation’s airports being targeted for lapses in runway safety, federal officials disclosed Monday.
Los Angeles International Airport [more below] and Long Beach Airport also made the list of 20 airports with high rates of runway incursions – when planes pass too close to one another or airport vehicles.
From 2002 to 2006, John Wayne Airport tallied 20 incursions, tying it for 12th place nationally. National data are not yet available for the 2007 fiscal year, but federal officials say JWA, the country’s 24th busiest airport, recorded another nine incursions.
Airport spokeswoman Jenny Wedge chalked the problem up to JWA’s large number of private small-plane flights, which account for roughly 70 percent of operations.
FAA chief cites hazard at LAX site - LA Times
The acting chief of the Federal Aviation Administration said Monday that the two north runways at LAX need to be reconfigured to lessen the chances of collisions between aircraft on the ground.
Bobby Sturgell, acting FAA administrator said -- as did his predecessor -- that the pair of runways on the north side are too close together and need to be separated further.
O.C. use of LAX declined since 9-11 - El Toro Info Site report
An unpublished study by Los Angeles World Airports shows that Orange County use of LAX declined from 2001 to 2006. The report is planned to be released next month but partial data was presented in a Daily Breeze article last weekend as justification for a political proposal to charge OC residents for using LAX.
Today, the El Toro Info Site published preliminary results from the study. Orange County residents and visitors constituted 8.6% of passengers flying through LAX - a declining share of the traffic.
The decrease in OC use of LAX - from 5.4 million annual passengers (MAP) to 5.2 MAP occurred during a period when large numbers of travelers were abandoning the Los Angeles Airport for more user-friendly smaller airports. It became possible after the MAP cap limitations on the use of John Wayne Airport were raised in December 2002.
The data strongly suggests that the growth in traffic at JWA during this period came not just from the smaller number of locals switching from LAX but also to more travelers from neighboring counties choosing to use JWA now that its MAP cap has been raised.
Airports need to sharpen screener skills - Daily Breeze, Editorial
If the creeping lines and tedious searches were not bad enough, now we learn that security screeners at Los Angeles International Airport flunked hidden-bomb tests 75 percent of the time.
USA Today, which got hold of a classified memo, reported last week that screeners at two other major airports, Chicago O'Hare and San Francisco International, did somewhat better in tests with fake bombs.
The scores should have been, and probably were, a shock to security bosses.
But here's something to make you feel a little better. Those low scores were racked up last year. This year, the Transportation Security Administration says it is running tests every day at every airport, and every time a screener misses, he or she gets remedial training.
Even so, we'd feel a whole lot better about the long, slow lines and shucking our shoes and belts if those airport screener scores show some real improvement.
Better still if, instead of making those meticulous searches of Granny with her umbrella and tennies the screeners would pay more attention to more likely suspects.
FAA to study radio tower risk - OC Register
Fullerton and Caltrans say KFI tower in La Mirada would be pilot hazard.
The Federal Aviation Administration has agreed to further study whether a reconstructed radio tower would threaten the safety of pilots flying in and out of Fullerton Municipal Airport.
The previous tower at the La Mirada site less than two miles northwest of the airport was toppled and destroyed in 2004 when a small plane slammed into it, killing the pilot and his wife.
The FAA review comes in response to petitions filed by the city of Fullerton and the aeronautical division of the California Department of Transportation that say, in essence, that the tower poses an obvious hazard because a tower in that spot has already killed two people.
Website Editor: The Orange County Airport Land Use Commission also objected but does not have jurisdiction over the site which is in LA county.
The FAA previously made a determination that a rebuilt tower would pose "no greater risk" than the previous tower [which has been involved in three deaths.].
Website Editor: The FAA made a somewhat similar determination regarding high-rise residential towers that the ALUC opposed but the city will build in Costa Mesa.
Week of October 16 - October 21, 2007
LAX leader proposes charging OC to fly - Daily Breeze
Share the burden or cough up the cash.
That's the message airport commissioner Walter Zifkin sent this week by suggesting Orange County residents be charged a special fee to use Los Angeles International Airport.
Zifkin dusted off the failed idea to make Orange County literally pay for placing a series of growth caps at John Wayne Airport near Newport Beach, while also voting down an international airport at a decommissioned Marine Corps air station at El Toro.
"Their decision to burden LAX should be shared, and I believe a fee would be a very appropriate way to do that," said Zifkin, an executive with the William Morris Agency. "If this is something we are able to do, it is something that needs to be discussed."
"Slapping a fee against us will only increase antagonism and create some showmanship in the political arena," [website editor Len Kranser] said. "Their thinking is as parochial as Orange County deciding to charge L.A. residents to access Disneyland or our beaches."
In a survey of nearly 28,000 passengers flying out of LAX last year, 13 percent came from Orange County, according to figures provided by Los Angeles World Airports, the city agency that operates the airport.
Airline incentives may be a break for Ontario passengers - LA Daily News
Airlines flying to new destinations from L.A./Ontario International Airport may soon receive a series of incentives that could lead to reduced ticket rates for passengers.
The measures ordered by the Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners could include landing at the Ontario airport for free, decreased terminal rental rates and marketing partnerships for airlines offering flights to new international and domestic cities.
Decreased rates charged to airlines usually translate into ticket savings for passengers.
Website Editor: See the San Diego airline incentives story below.
Most fake bombs missed by screeners - USA Today
Security screeners at two of the nation's busiest airports failed to find fake bombs hidden on undercover agents posing as passengers in more than 60% of tests last year, according to a classified report obtained by USA TODAY.
Screeners at Los Angeles International Airport missed about 75% of simulated explosives and bomb parts that Transportation Security Administration testers hid under their clothes or in carry-on bags at checkpoints, the TSA report shows.
At Chicago O'Hare International Airport, screeners missed about 60% of hidden bomb materials that were packed in everyday carry-ons - including toiletry kits, briefcases and CD players.
San Francisco International Airport screeners, who work for a private firm instead of the TSA, missed about 20% of the bombs, the report shows. The TSA ran about 70 tests at Los Angeles, 75 at Chicago and 145 at San Francisco.
The
LA Times followed the USA Today story with LAX screeners sweat the small stuff, miss
the 'bombs'. Don't I know it after having to relinquish 2 ounces of toothpaste for sensitive teeth left in a 4 ounce tube that I faithfully displayed to JWA security in my 3-1-1 clear plastic bag.
JWA projected to hit MAP cap – El Toro Info Site report
Based
on results through September,
In
2003,
In an effort to prevent this from occurring, airport management allowed each air carrier at JWA a seat allocation last December for the coming year. The total allocated for all airlines was 13,182,672 seats - 1,052,662 fewer than the airlines requested.
At the time, management estimated that these seat allocations would result in 9.6 million flying passengers with the remainder of the seats remaining vacant. A California Public Records Act request from this website produced the calculations employed, which used an estimated load factor of 73.2 % and an assumption that the airlines would use only 95.2% of their allowed capacity.
Passengers filled a larger percentage of the available seats than the airport expected.
It
is the manager’s practice to try to maintain a
comfortable cushion under the cap – comfortable for the airport and
Unless some external factor stops the trend, the airport manager is expected to withdraw some of the airlines’ seat allocations – resulting in fewer seats for sale and probably higher ticket prices.
San Diego seeks to resume LAX bypass - El Toro Info Site
As if LAX has not had enough bad news about losing overseas travelers to other airports, San Diego is about to offer incentives to air carriers to resume international travel from Lindbergh Field.
The San Diego County Regional Airport Authority board agreed to woo international carriers through a mix of financial incentives, including $750,000 to promote any new overseas flights.
The agency is willing to temporarily waive or reduce terminal rents and landing fees for airlines offering direct or single-stop links to other continents.
The SD Union-Tribune reports about 500,000 people fly out of San Diego International Airport annually, heading for points overseas. But they often have to make two or three stops before reaching their destinations.
Many San Diegans currently travel overseas through LAX. A SD Regional Airport Authority report states that "Almost 40% of San Diego County residents [departing for Europe] depart from LAX"
If foreign travel is available from San Diego, some Orange County passengers may opt to drive or take the train south to Lindbergh Field in lieu of heading north to LAX.
Horizons expanding at L.B. Airport - Long Beach Press-Telegram
ExpressJet is taking up empty slots at the airport, and will offer six nonstop daily flights to three destinations - Reno/Lake Tahoe, Fresno and Monterey - starting Nov. 11. The flights from Long Beach start at $59 one-way.
"Whether it's golfing in Monterey or skiing in the Reno/Tahoe area, it's about offering passengers a lot more convenience," said ExpressJet President and CEO Jim Ream.
ExpressJet uses a fleet of 50-seat Embraer 145 aircraft flying in and out of 164 North American destinations.
The Houston-based airline also services several other California airports, including Bakersfield, Ontario, San Diego, Santa Barbara and Sacramento.
Website Editor: From John Wayne Airport, the only non-stop service to Reno in November is on Aloha Airlines for $229 RT. There is no JWA direct service to Fresno or Monterey.
Burbank has record setting month - El Toro Info Site
Bob Hope Airport BUR served 572,117 passengers in August, the largest number ever for a single month. The airport is headed for a record year.
Week of October 8 - October 15, 2007
Governor signs Keogh SD airport authority bill into law - El Toro Info Site report
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Senate Bill 10 into law. The new law takes effect January 1, 2008, and calls for:
Completion of a Regional Aviation Strategic Plan (RASP) by the Airport Authority by June 30, 2011. The goal of the RASP is to improve the performance of all airports within San Diego County.
Preparation and adoption by SANDAG of an Airport Multimodal Accessibility Plan (AMAP) by December 31, 2013. The purpose of the AMAP is to improve surface transportation access to all airports in the county and adjacent counties.
Changes to the structure and compensation of the Airport Authority Board, including elimination of the salaries for the three-member Executive Committee of the Board.
Long Beach airport update – El Toro Info Site report
The Airport's EIR, approved by the city council six months ago, has been challenged by the Long Beach Unified School District. The city expects a preliminary ruling from the judge in January. In the meantime, the city is doing preliminary planning with airport businesses.
The council voted to increase the size of the airport terminal from its current 56,320 square feet to 89,995 square feet and to increase the number of gates from 8 to 11.
Meeting SCAG forecasts for 2035 – El Toro Info Site report
The Southern California Association of Governments is finalizing its projection of a near doubling of regional air passenger service by 2035.
SCAG assumes that LAX and John Wayne - the region’s two busiest airports today – will never grow beyond their currently negotiated passenger caps even though their limits expire in several years.
Only Ontario is forecasted to rapidly grow and become a major airport. Los Angeles owns ONT and local San Bernardino County residents have limited control. Already, hundreds of homes are within the current 65 CNEL noise contour - a zone considered incompatible with residential use.
In our opinion, Palmdale, Oxnard, Victorville, Carlsbad and a handful of other would-be airports that SCAG sees playing important roles will provide little more than commuter flights to LAX or limited connections to a hub in San Francisco, Las Vegas or Phoenix.
It seems more likely that a future mayor of Los Angeles may decide that his city needs jobs and will reactivate plans to expand LAX. We also anticipate pressure from airlines and travelers to raise the MAP cap at JWA when it expires and the new third terminal is open for business.
El Toro Info Site concludes eleventh year of airport news
The volunteer team started posting news in October 1996. Our news archive contains every report since then.
We did not think to save every home page change and the earliest designs have disappeared into cyberspace. It was a time when we were experimenting with "whistles and bells" as you can see from our oldest retained first page from January, 1998.
Week of October 1 - October 7, 2007
Newport's airport advisor quits due to attacks - Daily Pilot
Former Newport Beach City Attorney Bob Burnham has severed his consulting contract with the city of Newport Beach, after repeated allegations by a resident that he is responsible for an over-concentration of drug- and alcohol-recovery homes in the city.
Burnham was city attorney for more than 20 years and retired in 2004. He has since worked for the city as an advisor on airport issues, according to city officials.
“Bob is irreplaceable as far as his technical knowledge and understanding of airport operations,” [City Manager Herman] Bludau said. “It’s a huge loss to the whole community, because John Wayne Airport issues are at the top of the list of our residents’ priorities.”
Controller shortage hurt LAX - Daily Breeze
A shortage in air-traffic controllers led to 55 so-called runway incursions reported at Los Angeles International Airport since October 2001, eight of which occurred in the past year, according to a study released this week.
An understaffed control tower at LAX means longer work hours and more duties for fatigued air-traffic controllers, leading to an increased likelihood for serious mistakes on the runway, according to a report by the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.
However, Federal Aviation Administration officials argued that the runway incursions reported at LAX were not related to alleged staffing shortages in the control tower. "Most runway incursions are due to pilot error," said Ian Gregor, an FAA spokesman.
World's largest passenger jet arrives in test run - Oakland Tribune
The world's largest passenger jet touched down at San Francisco International Airport on Thursday.
Able to carry up to 555 passengers, the first double-deck [A380] jetliner built by the French company Airbus will be delivered to Singapore Airlines 10 days after the SFO landing. It will be put in service Oct. 25.
Airbus is also saluting efforts by SFO to be the first U.S. airport ready to handle the airplane with a wingspan nearly the length of a football field.
SFO planned for the arrival of the spacious four-engine aircraft when it built its $2.7 billion international terminal in 2000.
"SFO's been the leader across the nation, and was the first to declare itself A380 ready," said Clay McConnell, spokesman for Airbus. "We're saluting efforts by the city and airport, and landing to demonstrate what they've done."
Ten years ago – Irvine World News
As the debate over the fate of the El Toro Marine Corps air base continued, only one in four people in the county supported a commercial airport as a preferred use after the Marines left, according to a UC Irvine survey. Those surveyed also gave a low vote of confidence to the way the county was handling the issue.
The El Toro Info Site reported the story with additional details:
49% of residents would prefer to rely on John Wayne Airport alone to meet Orange County's air travel needs. 34% want two airports (which many industry experts say is not feasible) and only 11% support closing John Wayne - the alternative proposed in the county's reuse plan for MCAS El Toro.
Tuesday,
the Costa Mesa City Council voted to proceed with
action to override the
determination of the Airport Land Use Commission that a
300 foot high rise in
ALUC's
mission is to evaluate development for encroachment on the airport so
as to avoid adverse impacts on aircraft and persons on the ground.
LAWA Awards $16.5 Million, Five-Year Contract for FlyAway Service to Union Station Featuring Clean, Alternative Fuel Bus Fleet - LAWA media release
The Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners approved a $16.5 million, five-year contract for Coach America Los Angeles to operate non-stop bus service from Union Station to Los Angeles International Airport. The contract will replace the LAX FlyAway service pilot program, which used diesel fuel buses, with a new fleet of smaller buses fueled by compressed natural gas (CNG).
Los Angeles World Airports' (LAWA) FlyAway at Union Station began operations March 2006. During its first year, more than 250,000 passengers rode the non-stop bus service to LAX, exceeding ridership projections by threefold.
Website Editor: At current ridership the contract award computes to $13.20 per ride. Adult passengers pay $4 plus parking.
The airport estimates that 80 percent of users were air travelers with the remainder being airport employees. By that measure, one out of every 300 travelers to LAX used the Union Station connection. The Van Nuys Flyaway handled more than 1 in every 100 LAX passengers last year.
The LAX Flyaways are not yet serving a large fraction of travelers but constitute a step in the right direction. At New York's JFK airport, 4 million travelers used the airtrain last year, approximately 11% of those arriving at or leaving the airport.
LAX in decline – El Toro Info Site report
LAX hit its peak in the first part of 2001 and now is in decline relative to its competition. This is confirmed by statistics for the eight months ending August 2001, the last month before 9/11, and the eight months ending August 2007:
| LAX
Passengers |
8 mos. 2001 | 8 mos. 2007 | Decrease
2001 to 2007 |
| Domestic | 33,870,771 | 30,591,789 | 3,278,982 |
| International | 11,748,222 | 11,634,181 | 114,041 |
| Total | 45,618,993 | 42,225,970 | 3,393,023 |
Millions of domestic passengers fled LAX for other, more accessible airports in the region.
International travel grew nationally but L.A. lost market share as airlines opted to use other overseas gateway cities around the country.
Two events in 2001 contributed greatly to the airport’s decline. One was the terrorist attack of 9/11 with its resultant impact on airline service and security delays. LAX recovered more slowly than many major airports. By contrast, New York’s JFK was up 13% last year from 2000 levels.
The second major 2001 event was the election of James Hahn as Mayor of Los Angeles. The LA Times reported that "To appease [El Segundo Mayor Mike] Gordon during the 2001 mayoral campaign, Hahn pledged that if elected, he would limit capacity at LAX to 78 million passengers a year." (See Salt Lake City story below.)
Hahn’s election led to controversial plans, later abandoned, to reshape LAX while curtailing its capacity. Millions of dollars were spent on plans but little actually was done to make the airport attractive to travelers.
LAX was largely neglected during the failed attempt to “regionalize” (redistribute) air travel to El Toro.
Hahn’s political pledge to regionalize travel was adopted by the Southern California Association of Governments, SCAG, and by his successor, Antonio Villaraigosa who campaigned with the same promise to LAX neighbors. Rather than improve ground access to LAX, the focus turned to long-range planning for magnetic levitation and other high-speed rail connections to alternate airports.
Through it all, LAX was left to become more outdated. The results show in the statistics.
Salt Lake City International Airport: Waiting for liftoff - Salt Lake Tribune
Officials at Salt Lake City International Airport are laying the groundwork for a sweeping transformation of the airfield's antiquated concourses and terminals.
They haven't developed detailed plans, timetables or cost estimates, but they say the bustling airport is running out of gates for the 15 airlines that serve Salt Lake. Many of those carriers, rejuvenated and fresh after years of turmoil dating back to 9/11, have informally asked airport executives to explore how more gates can be added to handle passenger numbers that have nearly doubled since the 1980s.
The process of developing a strategy to enlarge the airport comes as Salt Lake voters in November prepare to elect a new mayor.
Candidate Dave Buhler promises to make airport expansion a key goal if elected. "It's long overdue," he said.
Rival Ralph Becker said he doesn't question the need to improve the airport. It's "a critical piece of our economic present and future, and we need to make sure that the airport serves passengers, airlines and the city well."
Behind the urgency to act is strong growth in passenger numbers. The airport was originally designed to handle 12 million passengers a year. Passenger numbers reached 22 million in 2005.
JWA's full slate – OC Business Journal, Insider
Air travel in Southern California has finally surpassed pre-9/11 levels. El Toro Airport slayer Len Kranser reports the region handled 52.5 million travelers for the first seven months, up 2.3% from last year and breaking the record set in 2000. Yet LAX handled three million fewer passengers through July of this year than in 2000--Long Beach, John Wayne, Ontario, Burbank and Palm Springs accounted for the gains.
Kranser says John Wayne is up to 900,000 passengers a month; annualized, that’s more than JWA’s current 10.3 million-passenger cap and right at its future cap of 10.8 million.
So Kranser wonders why the airport is “spending $652 million on a capital improvement program billed as necessary to achieve 10.8 MAP?” He predicts JWA will take away airlines’ seat allocations to remain within the limit.
