New suburban flights will offer LAX relief

[question everything]

The Daily Breeze

Saturday, February 03, 2007

New suburban flights will offer LAX relief

United will fly from the Palmdale airport and ExpressJet from Ontario.
By Doug Irving
STAFF WRITER

Monday will be a very good day for those who have struggled for years to break the region's reliance on Los Angeles International Airport and spread more air traffic to the smaller airports in the suburbs.

In the morning, a startup airline will announce plans to begin flying from inland Ontario to more than a dozen small and midsize U.S. cities. A few hours later, airport commissioners are expected to clear the way for regular air service to resume in the high-desert town of Palmdale. Taken together, the two announcements could go a long way toward changing how the Los Angeles region flies. Planners and politicians alike have agreed that LAX can't handle the future travel demand alone -- and they need Palmdale and Ontario to make up the difference.

(snip)

The same Los Angeles agency that owns LAX also operates the airports in Palmdale and Ontario, and has worked in recent years to shunt some air traffic their way. It recently added "LA" to their names, to help market them to travelers who might not otherwise be able to find them on a map.

But airlines have always been hesitant to move flights away from the bustling hub of LAX and into the outlying airports unless they know the demand is there. LA/Ontario International Airport has begun to take off in recent years, but LA/Palmdale has, for the most part, been a very quiet place. United Airlines now wants to launch twice-daily flights from Palmdale to its hub in San Francisco, a plan the airport commission is expected to approve Monday. That would give Palmdale one-stop access to Honolulu and Hong Kong, Seoul and San Salvador.

(snip)

Ontario has fared much better than Palmdale in recent years, attracting flights and travelers as its Inland Empire surroundings swelled with new residents. But it, too, has a long way to go to attract the level of traffic needed to ease the crunch at LAX. On Monday, a new airline will announce it plans to put more flights into Ontario than into any other city in the nation. The airline, ExpressJet, will be flying comfortable business jets with valet service for carry-ons and free satellite radio. Its route map hopscotches across mostly midsize cities such as Albuquerque, N.M., and Jacksonville, Fla. It's planning to connect LA/Ontario with 14 cities, from Fresno and Monterey to Tulsa and Kansas City.

(snip)

Find this article at:
http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/articles/5543666.html

C

[kestrel91316]

1. I look forward to the day when I can fly from Burbank to Milwaukee

without paying $1000. I SOOOOOOO hate having to trek down to LAX, even with the Flyaway Bus.

[CTyankee]

6. I have the same problem with my New Haven to Burbank trips to see my grandson.

If I pay less I spend the day flying to and fro with 2 stops in between (and of course 2 chances that your bag won't make it). There is also an hour drive from New Haven to Bradley Airport north of Hartford. But it is easier for my daughter to pick me up and drop me off. She lives in NOrth Hollywood. I do like Burbank, esp. the little retro coffee shop!

[kestrel91316]

13. Burbank Airport is SOOOOO nice - it feels like small-town

America there............Two (count 'em, two!) baggage carousels........instead of what? 6 per terminal in LAX times 7 terminals?

[CTyankee]

22. I know it sounds corny but I like Burbank itself

It's nice and quiet and has some very pretty neighborhoods.

[Porcupine]

2. Never mind climate change....keep flying!!!

Because it is the one sure activity that we could do without that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

We're idiots.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

8. yes, keep flying

Air Travel accounts for less than 2% of emissions

[Greyhound]

11. 2% of the emissions, but released at 30,000 - 40,000 feet. Doesn't this make

it more significant than just the gross tonnage of pollution?

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

12. true, but also over a much greater area

it isn't like it is a city of stationary smoke stacks - and per capita it is better 150 people fly between two points than drive. The larger the plane the lesser the per capita emissions.

The world would be much better served by getting a 2% reduction out of energy production (23% of emissions) or even land clearing (10% of emissions) than going after aviation that is somewhere in the neighborhood of farting livestock.

[question everything]

14. We should eliminate flights of less than 300 miles

IF there is efficient rail service, the way it is in Europe.

When the LA planners planned the light rails and the underground metro in the area, the Green Line stops just a few miles before LAX. Why? I've heard about lobbying by the taxi and shuttle companies... who knows.

In the 50s LA had a nice grid of buses and trolleys that were dug up and ditched because the oil and tire companies promoted cars.

[Leopolds Ghost]

20. Yes, this is true... Now, DC National Airport has a sweet rail connection. n/t

[Greyhound]

3. If only those bastards that live in the flight path to Long Beach would hurry up and die

maybe we could get that wonderfully convenient location to expand its terminal capacity to accommodate the pent-up demand.:eyes:

LBC and Burbank are such a joy to fly into, if you can get a flight there and the locations are so convenient, depending which way you're going once you get there.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

5. Newport Beach and Costa Mesa Too!

Hey assholes, you live five miles from an airport that opened in the 1920's - shut the fuck up.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

4. EL TORO!

that is all,

Or do we wait 20 years and use eminent domain to take the few blocks between John Wayne and the abandoned Tustin Air Station?

Am I the only one embarassed that basically no infrastructure has been built in California in my life time?

[Greyhound]

7. I thought about El Toro too. They still haven't done anything with that?

It is shameful, there is so much need in SoCal for so many things and so many that are willing to just ignore it, especially in OC.

[951-Riverside]

9. I believe they are building luxury houses on El Toro property. n/t

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

10. not just ignore, but squander.

It is just a matter of time before El Toro is McMansions, so what could have been a turn-key international airport in under five years is going to be lost for all time. They same thing is going to happen in San Diego to Miramar.

So instead of jumping at the chance to address a serious problem at minimal cost,

What really burns me about this is I was just at John Wayne a week ago, and sitting in the terminal waiting for my flight five private jets took off in a row and one of them actually was shaking the glass in the terminal.

The next plane to take off was a Southwest 737 and from inside the terminal it was as loud as my girlfriend using her hair dryer with the bathroom door closed.

Hmm... I wonder which is contributing more to the noise from that airport.

[question everything]

18. It was never a turn key operation

The runways were going to be demolished and rebuild.

A major earth moving operations would have been done to lower the uphill of one of the runways.

The cost was estimated at $3 billion - in 1998 dollars - and 800 fuel trucks would have been needed, daily.

Plus, to make it profitable, to be able to provide enough revenue to pay for the bonds, passengers would have to be imported all the way from Ventura County. Yeah, right.

And then, of course, came 9/11 which sent aviation spiraling downwards. LAX still has not recovered its pre-9/11 traffic.

http://www.eltoroairport.org/news/news-1206.html#1210-holdingback

[Initech]

16. El Toro is being turned into a huge shopping center.

Not that Orange County needs any more shopping centers... :eyes:

[question everything]

15. Forget it! There is an urban park planned for El Toro

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/04/business/yourmoney/04natreal.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1170651725-SKB9WsDYCoTQ4htbokNC9Q

and John Wayne is perfectly capable of handling the traffic demand of Orange County.

Sure, there are about 5 million passengers a year that use LAX from Orange County, but most of them are from north county - Los Alamitos or Huntington Beach for whom LAX or LGB are closer, anyway, or tourists to and from Disneyland.

And... there is a very dense population around El Toro. One reason why it was on the closed bases list was because of "urban encroachment." In the 80s the commander of the base expressed his opposition to build a five story (I think) medical center down the road, expressing his concern from some kind of a collision.

The funny thing was that it was Newport Beach rich Republicans movers and shakers that wanted to move commercial aviation to El Toro, leaving John Wayne as "general aviation" - for their private jets. Except, following basic laws of physics, most departure from El Toro would have turned and gone right over their heads, downhill and with head winds, just as they do in John Wayne, LAX and Long Beach = except when there are Santa Ana winds.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

19. Orange County can't take care of the parkland we have now,

the last thing we need is another poorly maintained park. However in a decade virtually every airport in the region is going to be gridlocked.

I have been listening to the same shrill talking points for the last decade, and here is a free tip - when using resources from a shrill activist website... don't link to it.

John Wayne is both under a court enforced limit on passengers, that the airport could be in breach of already, and it is incapable of growing being boxed in by the 405 and 73. The only potential avenue for growing would be using eminent domain to take the land between it and Tustin Air Station. And that will be a hell of alot more unpopular than anything involving El Toro.

The runways can not be used in their present config, their too close together. Paint big white X's on either end of two of the four intersecting runways and presto. There were proposals to replace the two closed runways or re-align all of them, but the project was never dependant on that.

But hey, build something in California other than a mega-mall, that is crazy talk.

[Initech]

17. I look forward to the day when I can fly from Ontario to whereever.

I'd much rather fly out of ONT or SNA than LAX.

[MiniMe]

21. They can call it Ex-Lax

sorry, couldn't resist.

[question everything]

23. Common joke. Which will assure that LAX will never be named

after Ronald Reagan, or Arnold, or any other actor.