Ontario-LA Feud Over Ontario Airport Exposes Flaws in Regional Planning

UNHAPPY LANDINGS-Maybe it was a bad idea from the very beginning. 

Fifty years ago, the thought of Los Angeles taking over a small airport in the Inland Empire seemed like a huge win for Ontario. A no-brainer. 

But over the past decade, Ontario has pulled out all the stops to get its airport back, accusing Los Angeles World Airports, the agency that manages both LA/Ontario and Los Angeles international airports, of all manner of ineptitude and mismanagement as traffic declines at ONT and grows at LAX. 

Industry analysts, however, are not surprised at LAWA’s emphasis on LAX, the agency’s crown jewel.

 “Clearly, LAWA’s focus is LAX: They want to make it a temple, make it a premier airport at all costs,” said Jack Keady, president of Keady Transportation Consulting in Playa del Rey. 

That was clear last week as Los Angeles officials announced that a recording-breaking 71 million passengers that came through LAX last year on the same day that Ontario officials reported that the decline in air service at ONT since 2008 has cost the local economy $3.6 billion.  

The focus on LAX is to be expected, Keady said, noting that it’s rare for a single agency to oversee more than one airport. LAWA’s priority is naturally going to be LAX, he said, especially in a bad economy when all airports are scrambling for passengers. 

Indeed, LAWA’s initial charge when it was founded in 1928 was to turn LAX, then a fledgling airstrip itself, into a first-class facility. 

It wasn’t until 40 years later, in the 1960s, that the idea of a regionalized airport plan began to take shape as Ontario officials lobbied Los Angeles to take over its airport. 

That agreement was not easy to obtain, according to Sam Crowe, the former Ontario councilman and city attorney who negotiated the 1967 deal between Ontario and Los Angeles. 

“It was a hard sell,” Crowe said. “They weren’t anxious to take over our airport.”

 

(Liset Marquez covers the cities of Upland, Claremont, Rancho Cucamonga as well as LA/Ontario International Airport for the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin … where this piece was first posted.)

-cw

 

 

 

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 5

Pub: Jan 16, 2015