[Wright Concept]

With the runoff Elections for LA Mayor and the LAX modernization/space expansion one of the key topics, I wonder;
-What do you all think about it.
-What ideas do you have to make LAX and the airport system better?


EDITORIAL
Sitting Ducks at LAX

March 28, 2005

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, airline travelers have become more or less resigned to standing in lines. If waiting for checked luggage to undergo new scrutiny and for passengers and carry-on bags to get more than a cursory scan keeps bombs and hijackers off planes, who can really complain?

OK, plenty of people. And perhaps unbeknown to them, it turns out that inconvenience is not the only problem. As air travel rebounds toward pre-9/11 levels, the growing queues make tempting ground-level targets.

A Rand Corp. study on security at Los Angeles International Airport lacks only the phrase "sitting ducks." Arriving passengers were after all the targets of an attack planned for December 1999 by Al Qaeda terrorist Ahmed Ressam. Customs agents luckily arrested the "millennium bomber" as he crossed the Washington state border from Canada. According to the Rand report, he had planned to use a luggage bomb in the skycap or check-in lines.

Today, passenger lines are longer and just as vulnerable at airports nationwide, according to a separate report by the Government Accountability Office. The lines at LAX have become fodder for the L.A. mayoral race, though for now they are generating more rhetorical fire than reasonable fixes.

The Rand report claims the problem at LAX can be fixed quickly and relatively cheaply by hiring more skycaps, ticketing agents and security screeners. Mayor James K. Hahn, who is pushing an $11-billion airport renovation, says he agrees with Rand on the urgency of shortening lines but defends the airport director's position that doing so would be neither quick nor easy. The LAX argument is this: Debt-ridden airlines are too broke to hire additional ticket-counter staff, and the number of airport screeners is capped by the federal government. Further, the cramped airport doesn't have room for new counters or scanning stations.

City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, Hahn's challenger in the May 17 runoff, accuses the mayor of "summarily dismissing" Rand's recommendation as a way to bolster his more costly renovation. But Villaraigosa is vague about how he would find the money or the room to shorten lines. He opposes even a scaled-back compromise on LAX renovation that was adopted by the rest of the City Council, instead calling for the same regional airport system everyone supports and no one has figured out how to create. That isn't exactly a quick fix either.

If Rand's calculations seem a bit off the cuff (a 1% increase in screening staff would "significantly" reduce lines), LAX's computer-modeled calculations and all-or-nothing goal of reducing waits to a mere minute appear excessively fussy. Surely the city, the federal government and the airlines, acting together, could find ways of shortening if not eliminating long waits in line.

In the meantime, passengers can do their part. Use the check-in kiosks that airlines are installing to reduce ticket-counter congestion. Don't pack so much stuff. And by all means try uncrowded, city-owned Ontario International Airport, 35 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. Any additional driving time will be more than offset by shorter lines.

[Wright Concept]

This article brings up an interesting point, that may help LAX or aide the reasoning for the costs. Because LAX is a major hub airport for low-cost Southwest, Transpacific Gateway for the International Airlines (such as Qantas, Singapore and Korean Air-all of which may be recieving the A-380 jets), and Premium Transcontinental serivces such as American, Northwest and United (the only airlines that seem to stay afloat)


=============================================
Shake-up imminent for US airlines
Analysts expect high fuel prices, overcapacity and continuing losses to force consolidation among network carriers

Flight International 29 Mar 2005


US legacy airlines are in desperate need of reform and due for a shake-up, with imminent and much overdue “clearing out” of excess capacity possible this year, warn industry analysts.

Record fuel prices, leveraged balance sheets, overcapacity and low yields continue to cripple any chances of recovery for an “industry that is still depressed”, says Raymond Neidl, senior airline and transport analyst at Wall Street broker Calyon Securities.

Speaking at the Speednews suppliers conference in Los Angeles, Neidl said: “Most legacy carriers are trading around bankruptcy level, and it is only the low-cost carriers that I can truly recommend to buy or hold.”

Glenn Hickerson, GATX Air ad­visory board chairman, said: “Most of us remain in shell-shock from what seems to be a continuous US conundrum.” American Airlines, Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines, United Airlines and US Airways had lost $27 billion between them since 2000, he said. This was in spite of record load factors because they have not been associated with an increase in yield.

Neidl said the purging of weaker network carriers could come even earlier due to high fuel prices. “At $56-57 a barrel it will probably speed up the process. It will cause a clear-out of the excess capacity in the system, and we should know by June what will happen to the likes of US Airways and maybe Continental.”

With the exception of Con­tinental’s “package deal” ordering of Boeing 787s, taking over leases on former American Trans Air 757-300s, and accelerating delivery of six 737-800s, the US network carriers have either reduced or postponed deliveries. However, Con­tinental says it will be forced to cancel its 787 order and other parts of the Boeing deal and may also have to defer all 40 remaining aircraft on order due for delivery beyond 2005 if union agreements are not ratified.

Hickerson echoed Neidl’s view that a clear-out is overdue, but said the “survival of the fittest” did not seem to apply to US legacy carriers. “Most everyone agrees there are too many network carriers, most agree seven will reduce to four or five. But when?” He added that the low-cost carrier share of the domestic US market, measured in revenue passenger miles, could be “on its way to 50% within 36 to 48 months [from 30% last year]”.

GUY NORRIS/LOS ANGELES

[urbanflyer]

Well first of all - let's get some misconceptions out of the way. American is still teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and they comprise the third largest share of traffic at LAX - fuel prices are really going to hurt them if they don't start shedding some capacity. United, the largest overall operator at LAX, is almost certainly not going to be able to survive and will leave a significant void if and when they go. Whether this allows low cost carriers to flood the market or not remains to be seen - LAX faces its most significant capacity shortage on the international side.

[Wright Concept]

No Quick Fix Seen for Long LAX Lines
Waits at counters and checkpoints can't be cut soon, airport officials tell City Council.
By Jennifer Oldham
Times Staff Writer

March 31, 2005

City Council members sympathized with airport officials Wednesday who testified that in the next few years they cannot significantly shorten lines at Los Angeles International Airport that are vulnerable to a terrorist attack.

The Rand Corp., in a report last fall on security at LAX, made cutting lines in ticket lobbies and at security checkpoints its top recommendation.

Airport officials have said they can't comply because the cash-strapped airlines and the federal Transportation Security Administration, which manages screeners, are short-staffed.

"What we have control over, we are doing," said Councilwoman Janice Hahn, after hearing testimony from airport officials at a meeting of the council's Commerce, Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

"What we don't have control over is additional airline and TSA staff. We can tell them, in the name of security, we believe we need more staffing at ticket counters and checkpoints, but we can't make them do that."

Airline representatives told the committee that they are relying on new technologies, such as electronic ticketing machines, and on passengers who print their boarding passes at home to reduce queues.

Lines at LAX will decrease by 50% by 2008 after installation of a new $400-million luggage system, airport officials testified.

Rand recommended adding 5% more agents at ticket counters to speed passengers into the more secure boarding gate areas. A consultant hired by airport officials, however, found that airlines would have to hire 25% to 75% more personnel to reduce lines during peak periods.

Mayor James K. Hahn called for the Rand study last spring after the council threatened to hire a firm to conduct a security analysis of his $11-billion modernization plan. Lines in ticket lobbies at LAX have grown since new baggage and passenger screening requirements were put in place after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Rand stands by its study and insists that it remains urgent to reduce lines at LAX.

At a second security-related airport meeting Wednesday, the city's Airport Commission questioned consultants about a report released last week that recommended that the LAX police force remain independent.

Consultants from CTI Consulting in Bethesda, Md., told the commissioners that merging the LAX police with the LAPD would cause a disruption that could put travelers at risk while the "country is fighting a war on terror."

"Now is not the time to go through an upheaval of a system that's working," said Ken Cox, lead researcher on the $900,000 study.

Hahn, LAPD Chief William J. Bratton and other city leaders have called for the LAX police to be merged with the LAPD, arguing that it would eliminate confusion.

The Airport Commission voted to accept the 104-page report's recommendations, which urged the airport police and the LAPD to work more closely together, and asked airport staff to come up with a plan to implement the findings in the next 30 days.

[Wright Concept]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-contracts5apr05,1,5924841.story?coll=la-headlines-california

CALIFORNIA
Airport Contracts Extended
Panel acts on lucrative LAX concessions due to expire after the May 17 mayoral election.
By Jeffrey L. Rabin and Jennifer Oldham
Times Staff Writers

April 5, 2005

Despite travelers' poor reviews of the shops and restaurants at Los Angeles International Airport, the city's Airport Commission on Monday unanimously approved the extension of lucrative concession contracts without discussion or debate.

The extensions, which were approved as several powerhouse City Hall lobbyists looked on, allow operators of duty-free shops, newsstands, bookstores and McDonald's restaurants to continue serving millions of passengers at the world's fifth-largest airport for up to two years.

The contracts would not have expired until the end of May, after the May 17 runoff mayoral election between incumbent James K. Hahn and Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa. But airport officials hurriedly placed the extensions on the commission agenda at the end of last week.

Airport officials said they had not put the contracts out to bid because they recently embarked on a two-year process to overhaul LAX's underperforming concessions program. Travelers consistently give the shops and food choices poor marks.

Yet the concessions are so lucrative that the airport earned as much as $45 million a year from the arrangements. The contracts are essentially monopolies and are so highly prized that the major concessionaires hire lobbyists and make campaign contributions to city officials, including Hahn. The mayor appoints the seven-member Airport Commission.

John Ek, a prominent airport lobbyist whose clients include McDonald's, said after the vote that he had co-hosted a $1,000-per-person fundraiser for Hahn last Wednesday in San Pedro and that he helped raise money for the mayor last year.

Ek confirmed that he had appeared a year ago before a grand jury investigating pay-to-play allegations that campaign contributions may have influenced decisions on city contracts.

Julio Ramirez, another lobbyist and Hahn contributor, represents the Hudson Group, which operates bookstores and newsstands at LAX.

Ramirez is the husband of Annette Castro, one of Hahn's chief fundraisers. The Hahn campaign paid Castro more than $200,000 for her fundraising and campaign consulting activities in recent years, according to Hahn's campaign finance statements.

The New Jersey-based Hudson Group acquired the North American airport retail business of W.H. Smith in December 2003. Atlanta-area executives of W.H. Smith contributed $22,000 to Hahn's mayoral campaign in 2000. The company's LAX concession contract was extended without competitive bidding after Hahn was elected.

W.H. Smith also gave $50,000 to Hahn's L.A. United campaign to defeat the secession of the San Fernando Valley.

The Hudson Group contract was extended to May 31, 2006, with the option for another one-year extension.

The contract with DFS Group to operate the airport's Duty Free Shops was extended until Nov. 30, 2007. DFS executive Joseph Lyons and two lobbyists, Richard Lichtenstein and attorney Ellen Berkowitz, were at the commission meeting.

On the same 6-0 vote, the commission extended the concession contract of attorney Andy M. Camacho, who operates two Mexican restaurants at the airport. Camacho has contributed to both of Hahn's mayoral campaigns. He also gave $1,000 to the mayor's legal defense fund last month.

Contracts for coffee concessionaire Java Java and food and beverage concessionaires Eurotal and Creative Croissants were extended to May 31, 2007.

Travelers consistently give poor grades to the airport's concessions. Sales at restaurants and retail outlets also rank below the industry average.

In 2003, LAX shops and restaurants earned $6.17 per passenger, 27 cents less than the industry average of $6.44. Other major U.S. airports, including John F. Kennedy International in New York, San Francisco International and Miami International Airport, earned above the industry average. The figures do not include sales at duty-free shops.

Karen Tozer, the new concessions manager of the city's airport department, said a study would help guide decisions at LAX for the next 10 to 15 years. Tozer said some cities' airports have fabulous food and beverage outlets and stores. She said Los Angeles deserves the same.

The Airport Commission last month awarded a $622,000 contract to conduct the concession study. The consultant will evaluate the existing stores and restaurants and devise a new approach, including themes and a tenant mix to maximize space-constrained facilities.

The city's airport agency hasn't taken a broad look at its concessions program in more than a decade. The 133 sites at LAX are almost evenly divided between food and beverage locations and retail services. Many of the shops in the facility's nine terminals are outdated. Consumer tastes have changed, requiring a new look to generate higher sales, airport officials told the commission last month.

The study's completion date coincides with the expiration date of 70% of the contracts governing those shops. The city's airport agency hopes to put each concession contract out to bid, hire new operators and build new storefronts by May 2007. The seven concessionaires whose contracts were approved Monday have more than 850 employees at LAX.

[Wright Concept]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/valley/la-me-lax26apr26,1,4647439.story?coll=la-editions-valley

More World Travelers Using LAX
Low fares, an early Easter and the weak dollar contribute to a record first quarter, and officials predict a busy summer.
By Jennifer Oldham
Times Staff Writer

April 26, 2005

More international travelers flew in and out of Los Angeles International Airport in the first three months of this year than in any previous first quarter in its 76-year history.

The record increase marks a milestone for LAX, the nation's main gateway to Asia and its No. 2 point of departure for Latin America. The airport has been slower to rebound from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks than most other major U.S. airports.

Low airfares, an early Easter holiday and a weak U.S. dollar, which encouraged more Europeans and Asians to travel here, boosted international traffic in the first three months of the year, even as domestic flights continue to lag.

Just two years ago, the outbreak of SARS in Asia and the war in Iraq compounded a stubborn international travel downturn brought on by the terrorist skyjackings.

Today, flights are so full that several of the 56 carriers flying to foreign countries posted double-digit gains in the number of passengers in the first quarter over last year. And many are considering adding service or have already done so.

"It's going to be a busy summer," said Frank Clark, executive director of the organization that represents carriers at the Tom Bradley International Terminal.

Despite increased travel, most domestic airlines are still struggling to break even, hurt by fare cuts and soaring fuel prices. U.S. carriers have been looking to cash in on more lucrative international flights by adding service overseas and cutting domestic routes.

The increase in international travelers at LAX bodes well for the region's economy, which relies heavily on dollars spent by foreign tourists in shops, hotels and restaurants.

International travelers comprised 17.5% of the 24.3 million visitors to Los Angeles last year, but spent about 28% of the $12 billion that visitors added to the economy, according to LA Inc., the city's convention and visitors bureau.

"They tend to spend more, that's the bottom line," said Christopher Heywood, manager of corporate communications at LA Inc. "They are our prized market."

Shopkeepers at LAX said a better exchange rate has given travelers from Europe and Asia more pocket money, which they're using to buy luxury items such as chocolates, cigars and liquor.

"Sales are increasing, for sure, with us," said Joe Lyons, vice president of business development for Duty Free Shops, which operates 10 shops at LAX. "If Europeans come here, they find themselves with a lot of bargains."

More international visitors are also expected to flock to Los Angeles in the second quarter to take advantage of several events and attractions.

"The King Tut exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the 50th anniversary of Disneyland, combined with the weaker dollar, has everyone in the tourism business very excited," said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.

About 4.1 million international travelers passed through LAX in the first quarter, up 8.3% from the same period last year. The previous first-quarter record — 4.05 million — was set in 2001. The strongest quarter for international traffic ever at LAX was in the third quarter of 2000, when the airport logged 4.9 million international passengers.

Some international carriers posted enormous increases in the last quarter. TACA International Airlines and Aeroflot Russian International Airlines logged about 30% more travelers, El Al Israel Airlines and China Eastern Airlines reported a 29% increase, and Virgin Atlantic posted a 26% gain.

Overall, passenger traffic at the world's fifth-busiest airport rose 5.1% from January through March to 14.3 million, up from 13.6 million last year. The rise led airport officials to predict that LAX would see 64 million travelers this year and would completely recover from the 9/11 attacks by 2006.

Domestic passenger traffic at LAX was up 3.9% in the first quarter, with 10.2 million travelers, still short of the first-quarter record of 11.5 million travelers set in 2000.

Passenger traffic levels in the first quarter at the region's smaller airports, which recovered more quickly than LAX after the skyjackings, also hit record levels.

Ontario International Airport, which is operated by Los Angeles, saw historic gains, with 1.6 million passengers in the first quarter, up 3.8% from last year.

In Burbank, Bob Hope Airport posted record highs thanks to new service from several airlines and a larger seating configuration introduced by Southwest. The airport logged 1.2 million travelers from January through March, up 7.6%.

"In general, people seem to be feeling good about flying, and there are still competitive prices on the West Coast routes that dominate" at Bob Hope Airport, said Victor Gill, an airport spokesman.

At LAX, airport officials are planning a $225-million renovation of the 22-year-old Tom Bradley International Terminal, including upgrading the baggage system, fixing ailing elevators and escalators, and removing peeling paint, to accommodate record passenger levels. Construction is expected to start early next year.

Airlines are also modifying their facilities at LAX to better serve international travelers.

Air New Zealand, which saw strong business in the first quarter during its busiest travel season, said it's doubling the size of its premier lounge in Terminal 2.

"If we hadn't seen good growth, we wouldn't be investing in that kind of development," said Lucy Powell, communications manager for Air New Zealand. Powell said more Americans have become interested in traveling Down Under because of the popularity of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, which was filmed largely in New Zealand.

[Wright Concept]

Airport Project Has Baggage
Foes of a proposed expansion of Long Beach's cozy terminal worry it will lead to pressure to lift the city's limit on flights.
By Nancy Wride
Times Staff Writer

May 11, 2005

With its porthole windows and Art Deco lines, Long Beach Airport evokes a bygone era when white-gloved stewardesses wore hats and meals were served on china.

Now that 9/11 has made air travel an ordeal, Long Beach passengers boast they can arrive an hour before takeoff. NBC's Katie Couric called it "really cool" during a "Today" show segment on how to dodge congested airports.

Yet its virtues are vexing Long Beach Airport. And the once-overlooked airport is buckling under its success.

Just four years ago, Long Beach Airport had only 15 commercial departures a day, with more planes filled with cargo than people. Since JetBlue Airways made Long Beach its West Coast hub in August 2001, the upstart carrier's cheap fares and the ease of getting in and out of a pipsqueak airport have proved a winning mix.

Daily commercial flights increased to the 41 maximum allowed by the city's airport noise ordinance. The number of passengers soared from half a million in 2001 to 3 million last year. By contrast, John Wayne Airport in Orange County handles 130 commercial flights a day and Los Angeles International Airport handles about 900.

And Long Beach Airport is struggling to keep up.

To handle the increases in travelers and security demands since the terrorist attacks, the city says the airport terminal must expand.

The proposal has divided the city.

Business leaders, led by the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce and JetBlue, want a modernized airport terminal of up to 133,000 square feet that offers more amenities. They argue the airport has long failed to take advantage of business opportunities such as concessions that would crank up tax revenue for the city. (Fewer than 1% of the airport's 3 million passengers stayed overnight in the city last year, their studies show).

But residents who live around the airport fear the terminal project will lead to challenges or outright breaking of the noise ordinance.

"It's about time we decide to look out for people who live in this city," said Rae Gabelich, a new Long Beach councilwoman who opposes airport expansion.

The existing terminal is a city historic landmark, which means even its color cannot be altered without the approval of several commissions, which almost nobody expects. The upgrades and additional space would go in stand-alone adjacent buildings.

The soonest that the Long Beach City Council could decide on proposed improvements is March. Yet the ground war has begun.

JetBlue and the Chamber of Commerce would prefer the largest of several upgrade alternatives, at roughly 133,000 square feet. Some residents favor a smaller expansion. And the City Council voted Feb. 8 to limit the scope of the environmental impact report to an expanded terminal of 103,000 square feet. The existing terminal is about 58,000 square feet, including 23,750 square feet of temporary facilities.

Now, some airport backers are talking about letting voters decide the matter through a ballot measure. That would essentially be an end run around the City Council and would eliminate the environmental review process, which has stoked the airport growth debate.

It is an echo of what transpired in Orange County several years ago, where voters went to the polls repeatedly over the county's plans to build a commercial airport at the closed El Toro marine base. That proposal also divided the community, with residents who live near the base finally winning out when voters approved a plan to use the base for homes, businesses and recreation.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Gleaming white outside and sky blue inside, the Long Beach terminal today is not much different from what it looked like when it was built in 1941.

The exterior has the fluid horizontal lines and steel ship railings that are signatures of the streamline Moderne architectural style still seen in parts of Long Beach.

Vivid blue mosaic floor tiles depict the city's aviation and waterfront history; they peek out from under carpeting at the terminal entrance but are in full view upstairs, where there are dated restrooms. They share the second floor with airport operations offices, a single worker at a JetBlue computer and the old air traffic control tower.

Down a short hall are the Prop Room restaurant and bar. An outdoor patio allows passengers to smoke or dine al fresco overlooking the tarmac. Quarters are intimate, and the walk from terminal to plane is outdoors, just like baggage claim.

"It makes you want to say, 'Here's lookin' at you, kid,' " passenger John Shmoldas of Thousand Oaks said, quoting a line from the movie "Casablanca" as he lingered over dinner at the neon-lighted bar.

The airport's vintage appeal is the antithesis of most modern airports and has earned praise both from travelers and the national media.

"I travel around the country a lot," said Tom McGovern, a national sales manager for a Seattle company that sells products through Sprint, "and this airport is very old-fashioned and unique. It is just so much easier than most other airports."

Patricia Laurans, a dog show judge from Newtown, Conn. who travels extensively, said she would do almost anything to avoid flying out of LAX, "which I hate," she said.

"I love Long Beach," Laurans said. "Now, would I like it if there were more room here [in the boarding area] and covered places to get on the plane? Sure, but would I trade how easy it is to get around here and JetBlue? No way."

But with the influx of additional flights and passengers have come growing pains.

Federal security screeners work in rows beneath tarps. The winding path from the main airport terminal to the boarding area, referred to by one airport official as the "dog run" before pleading it not be mentioned, is open to the elements from about the knee down.

A portable building serves as the plane waiting area, where a staffer sells snack foods and beverages. The lone baggage claim carousel is outdoors under an awning. Passengers are fully exposed to the elements as they walk on the tarmac between the terminal and jetliners.

The Prop Room bar has 11 stools and no other seating. There are few bathrooms, and those upstairs are unreachable by the disabled. There is a small snack bar and smaller gift shop, where nothing more electronic than batteries is sold.

Amid the Spartan surroundings, the Chamber of Commerce and others see opportunity for business to bloom, from concessions to other sales tax generators for the city. In this picture, Gabelich and other foes see the opportunity for a crack in the door to get pried into an opening for more expansion than Long Beach residents need or want.

Opponents fear that a larger terminal and room to grow on the airport site will invite either other airlines to challenge the city's noise ordinance or the Federal Aviation Administration to decide to direct planes from larger, overcrowded airports to Long Beach.

For its part, the FAA says that is not about to happen. "We respect the 41-flight cap," said FAA spokesman Donn Walker.

As the city debates the future of the terminal, some travelers said they would welcome improvements. "I feel like we've stepped out of a time machine," Bob Rigo of Chino said with a grin as he and his wife and daughter dashed through the terminal. It took them 45 seconds. "Where's Ricky and Lucy?"

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Taking off

Long Beach airport facts

* The first transcontinental flight landed in Long Beach in 1911.

* The world's first flight school opened in Long Beach in 1919.

* In 1923, the new Long Beach Airport became the first municipal airport in Southern California.

* The airport is one of the world's busiest airports for private aircraft.

Source: City of Long Beach


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Long Beach Airport: Status Quo or Upgrade?

May 16, 2005

Re "Airport Project Has Baggage," May 11: Flying out of Long Beach has been one of my best experiences of air travel. Partly due to JetBlue's fares, but mostly due to the Long Beach Airport experience. Over the last few years I have had multiple conversations with different people about the ease of traveling out of Long Beach. Anybody who has issues with an outdoor baggage claim or portable ramp should fly out of LAX or John Wayne. Let JetBlue expand out of Ontario and Burbank. Why is it that when something is working so well, there is always someone trying to change it?

Jeff Wight

El Segundo

*

I have been a resident of Long Beach for 25 years and live under the final approach flight path at Long Beach Airport and can read you the numbers off the planes from my vegetable garden. I am also a former city councilman who fought hard for the limit of 41 flights a day and one of the many members of the Long Beach community who have come together to establish the Long Beach Alliance — a coalition of residents, businesses and city leaders who support the much-needed airport improvements.



We are united by our disappointment in those in the community, including several City Council members, who oppose airport improvements and have been misleading the public with fear tactics. Upgrading the airport will not result in more flights, and we care deeply about the environment.

The alliance's efforts are not an attempt to circumvent the environmental impact report. The majority of our community wants an upgraded airport — not more flights. There are clear benefits to the community and the economy by improving the airport. That is what our great city deserves and what the alliance is looking to achieve.

H. Delano Roosevelt

Long Beach

[LongBeachUrbanist]

I live in California Heights in Long Beach, right in the flight path. You really do get used to the noise, it usually isn't too bad.

Whenever there's a vote coming up about airport expansion, my front door gets plastered with NIMBY fliers, saying to turn out and protest expansion. I appreciate the fliers, because they let me know when to show up and support airport expansion!!! :)

Property values - shmoperty values...I rent! :eat:

[Wright Concept]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-airports26may26,0,351900.story?coll=la-home-local

LAX Braces for Summer Travelers
A record number of international passengers is expected starting Memorial Day. Other airports also prepare for a busy season.
By Jennifer Oldham
Times Staff Writer

May 26, 2005

The Tom Bradley International Terminal at Los Angeles International Airport is infamous with travelers around the world.

The 22-year-old building, home to 34 airlines, is the "worst terminal in the Western world," where "customs was a nightmare" and "lines a mile long," according to travelers who posted their experiences on an Internet bulletin board.

It's about to get much worse.

Low airfares, a weak U.S. dollar and an expanding array of flights to destinations around the globe are expected to contribute to record international traffic at LAX this summer.

Airports throughout Southern California are bracing for record passenger traffic from Memorial Day through Labor Day. And airline officials nationwide expect the busiest summer season since the previous peak in 2001.

Lines at customs, ticket counters and security checkpoints are already growing at LAX. The airport, the world's fifth-busiest, ranks low in how travelers rate its customs operations, but in a recent week, it had shorter lines than some other major airports.

"I'm just tired. I spent more than 10 hours on the flight and then more than an hour in line here," Jin Lee said after waiting in the Bradley terminal's crowded customs hall following her return from a trip to South Korea. "Why are they so long?"

As Lee and a friend stood in the lower level of the Bradley terminal, harried travelers speaking many languages and pushing carts loaded with luggage bustled around them.

At LAX, the city's airport agency expects 18.5 million travelers this summer, up 6% from the same period a year ago. About 5.1 million of them will be international passengers, a gain of about 10% over June, July and August of 2004.

The increase is welcome news at LAX, which suffered more than other major U.S. airports from the steep decline in travel that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Iraq war and the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in Asia.

"It's been four years since there's been demand like this for airline seats to and from Los Angeles," said Paul Haney, a spokesman for Los Angeles World Airports, the city's airport department. "Now airline station managers are telling us that their advanced bookings are up sharply for summer travel, and that means tickets will be scarce and planes will be full."

Many carriers have added service at LAX this summer, with more flights to Asia, Canada, Europe and Latin America.

Travelers can also choose from more options to Mexico, including flights on regional carriers.

ExpressJet, a regional provider for Continental Airlines, added 26 weekly departures on planes that seat up to 50 passengers from LAX to destinations such as Morelia, Aguascalientes and Leon.

"Because Los Angeles has a huge Mexican and Latin population, we wanted to provide them convenient travel options," said Martin DeLeon, Continental's manager of public relations.

Other Southern California airports are expect a busy summer. Passenger traffic at Ontario International Airport, which is managed by the city of Los Angeles, is expected to be up 4% this summer from last year; 2 million travelers are expected.

At Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, JetBlue kicked off three daily nonstop flights this week to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport — service that is expected to lure more passengers.

"This will be a peak summer travel season for us by historical standards," said Victor Gill, an airport spokesman.

Long Beach and John Wayne airports also are planning for a heavy summer, as is San Francisco International Airport.

"We're definitely seeing a big bump in international traffic," said Mike McCarron, a spokesman for the San Francisco airport.

Nationwide, international traffic is expected to rise 10% this summer for U.S. carriers, which hope to cash in on more profitable overseas routes, according to statistics from the Air Transport Assn., an airline trade group.

Domestic travel is predicted to grow by 4%, with an estimated 199 million travelers on U.S. carriers between Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day weekend.

Crowded airport lobbies and waiting areas promise to try passengers' patience, with customs and security managers girding for the busiest summer in four years.

At LAX, officials are working to cross-train customs officers to do several immigration-related duties.

"We want to have as many officers as possible to be able to handle this significant increase in workload," said Ana Hinojosa, the area port director for LAX for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

More efficient staffing and new technology helped keep chaos at a minimum last summer, she said, adding that her department works closely with airlines to ensure that passengers understand which documentation they need to pass through customs.

Even so, passengers ranked LAX 18th out of 22 large airports for customer satisfaction at customs checkpoints, according to a 2004 study by J.D. Power and Associates. Only Kennedy in New York, Miami International Airport, Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport performed worse.

When it comes to customs lines, however, perception isn't always reality. Despite the airport's poor reputation with travelers, customs posted shorter wait times at LAX in the last week than at other large airports.

Wait times at LAX customs stations ranged on average from 28 to 35 minutes. The airport had shorter waits than many of the 12 airports with the highest volume of arriving international passengers in the U.S. between May 17 and May 23.

Miami, Kennedy, Chicago's O'Hare and Washington Dulles International Airport consistently had longer wait times.

"For an airport our size, we're No. 2 in the nation for international arrivals … we're by far the best in a comparison of passenger wait times," Hinojosa said.

Airport officials hope to refurbish the Bradley terminal's lackluster image with a $251-million face-lift by upgrading the baggage system, fixing ailing elevators and escalators, and installing new concessions. Construction is expected to start early next year.

The record-breaking travel season at LAX comes as Mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa grapples with what to do with his predecessor's $11-billion modernization plan for the facility. The proposal, which faces litigation in state court this summer, probably is years away from being built, and its first phase wouldn't address some of the most glaring deficiencies at LAX, including crowded terminals.

The summer also begins with the threat of a strike at United Air Lines by its ground workers over the firm's attempt to get more wage concessions to help it emerge from bankruptcy. United is the largest airline at LAX.

The union is trying to negotiate a deal with the carrier by Tuesday, when a bankruptcy judge is expected to rule on a request by United to annul its contract with workers.

A strike could compound problems with crowding. Flights on most airlines are expected to be full, making it difficult for United's competitors to find room for additional passengers.

"Disruptions could create a severe ripple effect," said Richard Aboulafia, an aviation analyst at the Teal Group in Fairfax, Va. "It's not like there is extra labor. They've cut all of the fat, and indeed some of the muscle, out of the system."

[Wright Concept]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lax21may21,1,771359.story?ctrack=2&cset=true

FAA Approves LAX Modernization Plan
The action pushes the $11-billion proposal to the top of the mayor-elect's agenda.
By Jennifer Oldham and Jessica Garrison
Times Staff Writers

May 21, 2005

Federal officials signed off on the city's $11-billion modernization plan for Los Angeles International Airport on Friday, allowing construction to start and forcing Mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa to make the issue a top priority.

Villaraigosa said he had spoken with U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta after the decision was announced and told him that he opposed some of the plan's major components. Villaraigosa wants to eliminate a controversial passenger check-in center near the San Diego Freeway.

"He indicated that the decision was well on its way, and that they could not delay it because it was all ready to be issued," Villaraigosa said of the conversation.

The Federal Aviation Administration must complete an environmental impact report and sign off on the city's plan, but its decision Friday does not mean the city must follow the plan to the letter.

"This doesn't require the city or the airport to take any action at all," said Donn Walker, an FAA spokesman. "It simply means if they want to they can go ahead and implement" their airport plan.

The approval comes just three days after voters replaced the airport plan's two strongest proponents — Mayor James K. Hahn and Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski — with Villaraigosa and Bill Rosendahl, who oppose the proposal.

The FAA's action will require Villaraigosa, who has not offered a comprehensive alternative blueprint, to make some tough decisions about LAX this summer. The city is currently spending about $2 million a month to design projects and to pay for legal costs. Some of the money is being spent on parts of the proposal that Villaraigosa opposes.

"I believe that we need to develop a regional approach to expanding capacity," he said, adding that he thinks other airports should absorb some of the growth in passenger traffic.

On Friday, the airport-area's congressional representatives also decried the FAA's 58-page ruling.

"The only thing I can conclude is this may be an effort by someone to try to move the process forward faster and disregard the fact that we have a new councilman … and a new mayor," said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles).

Waters and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), who both endorsed Villaraigosa, have repeatedly called on Los Angeles officials to revamp the plan, which was introduced by Hahn shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The plan is highly unpopular in airport-area communities. On Tuesday, Villaraigosa outpolled Hahn in most of these areas.

Officials hope to break ground on the first construction project, moving the southernmost runway 55 feet closer to El Segundo, next spring. The city must first hire a contractor, and the Airport Commission and the City Council must sign off on the project and its environmental documents.

Costs related to the plan are sure to mount as opponents file suit in the next 60 days to challenge the federal environmental impact report.When asked if her clients — Inglewood, Culver City and Los Angeles County — would sue in federal court, attorney Barbara Lichman said: "There's no question about it."

The city is currently facing litigation brought in state court by these entities and airport-area residents. The lawsuit alleges that the complex environmental studies for the LAX plan understate the effects of noise, air pollution and traffic. A hearing is scheduled in August.

How Villaraigosa chooses to fix LAX could have wide-ranging implications for his administration. Reworking the city's aging airport, which was used by about 60 million travelers last year, has proven to be problematic for both Hahn and his predecessor, Richard J. Riordan. The city has spent $147 million in the last 10 years trying to rework the world's fifth-busiest airport, which consistently ranks near the bottom in surveys of traveler satisfaction.

Riordan left office before his expansion plan was approved. Hahn's plan faced certain defeat in the City Council last year before Miscikowski — who currently represents the airport area — suggested splitting the plan's projects into two phases.

The first phase features the most popular elements, including a transit hub near the Century Freeway, a consolidated rental car center in parking lot C and a people mover.

More controversial components, including a check-in center in a Westchester neighborhood, the demolition of terminals 1, 2 and 3 and the building of a terminal in the middle of the airport's horseshoe-shaped roadway, are part of a second phase. These so-called "yellow-light" projects require additional traffic, environmental and safety reviews before they could be built.

Hahn lauded the FAA's decision Friday.

"I am pleased," he said in a statement, "and look forward to working with labor, businesses, public safety officials and other stakeholders throughout the city as we continue to make LAX a model for safety, security and passenger convenience."

But the mayor is unlikely to see any actual progress on his plan before he leaves office.

Villaraigosa is likely to make a decision about LAX in conjunction with Rosendahl, a former local television host who won Miscikowski's seat. Rosendahl said Friday that he would "expect a reconsideration and another opportunity to weigh in on the issue."

"The mayor-elect … and I will talk a little bit more about our common strategy," he said.

Community leaders and legal experts questioned whether Rosendahl would be able to request another council vote on Hahn's LAX plan.

"I think it's a hard thing to do to have council members go back on a vote so shortly after their original vote," said Brendan Huffman, director of public policy at the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce.

Legal experts said that Villaraigosa could order the Airport Commission to start the whole process over. But he has said that he wanted the first phase of Hahn's plan to move forward.

Complicating the matter is Villaraigosa's assertion that he would kill the proposal's most controversial projects. Attorneys for the city and opponents argue that removing the second phase would invalidate the plan's environmental analysis. The new mayor also would have to grapple with how to hold capacity at LAX to 78 million passengers. The plan to do that, by removing 10 gates for airplanes, is part of the second phase.

If he does away with that phase, Villaraigosa would also jeopardize part of a $500-million agreement tied to Hahn's plan that is designed to ease noise, air pollution and traffic and provide jobs to residents living near LAX.

Architects of this deal said Friday that the community benefits were linked to individual projects and that schools near the airport would probably lose a large portion of funding if the controversial projects were cut.

"If the yellow-light projects are scaled back, then the benefits tied to those projects would be scaled back or eliminated," said Danny Tabor, a former Inglewood city councilman. He said the coalition that negotiated with airport officials to reach a community-benefits agreement was hoping to meet with Villaraigosa soon.

"We really need to show him how it all fits together so he has a clear understanding of the various aspects of the master plan."

Other airport-area residents also hope to get the mayor-elect's ear, saying they will withdraw litigation if he agrees to a proposal they plan to release next week. The document will ask for a security study of the plan, a limit on passenger growth and an increase in landing fees as an incentive for airlines to fly the new 550-seat Airbus A380, the largest airliner ever built, to city-owned airports in Ontario and Palmdale.

"They could have variable landing fees … that would make alternative airports much more attractive," said Jan Chatten-Brown, an attorney who represents airport-area residents. "There are other airports in the Greater Los Angeles area that have the capacity to take up the burden, and a lot of these communities want these flights."

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Approaching take-off

The two-phase, $11-billion remodeling of Los Angeles International Airport could start next year and would take at least 10 years to complete.

First phase

International terminal: $683 million

Add gates to west side of Tom Bradley terminal

People mover: $557 million

Construct elevated people mover to connect new transit center, rental car center and existing terminals

Rental car center: $476 million

Consolidate most rental car companies at one site

Intermodal transit center: $293 million

Connect bus routes and Green Line with people mover; add 9,100 parking spaces

West employee parking: $268 million

Build 12,400-space structure

South airfield: $255 million

Rebuild southernmost runway 55 feet farther south and construct center taxiway for added safety

Roads and communications: $230 million

Improve streets and add new communications network

South terminals: $125 million

Modernize southern terminals

Southeast surface parking: $32 million

Add 5,470 long-term parking spaces

Total: $2.9 billion

--

Second phase

Central terminal area: $2.22 billion

After demolishing parking structures,build a new terminal on the site

Satellite terminal: $1.78 billion

Add new concourse to handle larger aircraft, with connections to people mover and baggage system

North airfield: $1.247 billion

Rebuild parallel runways to handle larger aircraft and construct center taxiway for added safety

Central check-in facility: $1.18 billion

Build check-in center with people mover stations, 7,495 parking spaces and a baggage tunnel to terminals

North concourse: $850 million

Build new north concourse.

People mover: $557 million

Link the check-in center with the terminals

Communications and roads: $143 million

Complete communications network; improve roads

Fuel farm: $56 million

Reconfigure fuel farm to accommodate new taxiways

Total: $8.0 billion

Source: Los Angeles World Airports

[LongBeachUrbanist]

Wow, $11 billion. Imagine what could be done to LA's rail system for $11 billion! You could build 4 Red Lines to the beach with that kind of money.

Or Wilshire Red Line to Westwood, LRT subway downtown, plus a dozen light rail lines all over the place.

[deehrler]

All I care about is that LAX be Airbus 380 ready. In this entire fiasco, I doubt if it will be.....or is it?

[LosAngelesBeauty]

I hate nimbys period. I hope they lose and LAX gets to be fully modernized. I'm so glad the first phase includes to transit center. Rosenthal is 100% behind the Expo and green line and hopefully extending the Green Line up to Expo in the future. Personally, even if the Green Line were to go into the airport, it would be VERY uncomfortable to transfer from Blue Line to Green Line at night. That area is filled with ghetto people who look like hoodlums right out of a Hollywood murder film. I could never imagine stepping foot on that station after dark UNLESS it was manned with security and super bright lights!

[LongBeachUrbanist]

It sounds from the article like the Airbus is one of the things the NIMBY's are fighting.

As for transit, the MTA needs to do one or both of these things:
Build a proper junction at Rosa Parks station between the Blue and Green Lines, to allow people to ride a single train from Downtown to LAX's closest station.

Build a direct Downtown-LAX train line, either light-rail or Metrolink. They already own the right-of-way. Let's get this thing going already!

BTW, regarding the FAA-approved LAX plan and the Green Line. They *should* run the Green Line up to a station at Century/Aviation, where it would connect to the "People Mover". Instead, they're going to leave the Green Line where it is, and run the People Mover all the way to Imperial/Aviation. This is insane!!! Is anybody thinking more than five minutes into the future???? :brickwall: :hell:

[Wright Concept]

I hate nimbys period. I hope they lose and LAX gets to be fully modernized. I'm so glad the first phase includes to transit center. Rosenthal is 100% behind the Expo and green line and hopefully extending the Green Line up to Expo in the future. Personally, even if the Green Line were to go into the airport, it would be VERY uncomfortable to transfer from Blue Line to Green Line at night. That area is filled with ghetto people who look like hoodlums right out of a Hollywood murder film. I could never imagine stepping foot on that station after dark UNLESS it was manned with security and super bright lights!

Rosenthal is against the LAX Modernization, Like Villaraigosa, And their in a Catch 22 with this. Damned if he does (Extending the Green Line- transit related options because that was one of their key platforms- and at the same time anything related to the LAX will be perceived as Expansion), Damned if he doesn't (Not going for the improvements)

[LosAngelesBeauty]

What we really need is a train that runs directly from LAX to DTLA like the Harbor Subdivision. The time it takes from 7th/Metro to United Terminal at LAX is EXACTLY one hour (I don't know if you guys think that's bad or not but I found it faster than the car still). I left DTLA at 4PM and got to the terminal at 5PM using Blue Line, transferring to Green Line (which the station was filled with "hoodlums" and people that made me feel unsafe to be there) and then taking the free shuttle to LAX, which was not inconvenient at all surprisingly!

I bumped into a lady coming in from Honolulu at LAX riding the shuttle (she was GOING TO the Green Line station) and she told me that she thought LA's mass transit system was very advanced! I was like "Huh? REeeeaLLY? :-P" And she said "Yeah! Compared to Honolulu, LA is GREAT!"

I guess the point I'm trying to make is we're always comparing ourselves to the "big ballers" like NYC and SF that have great mass transit, but we are actually "better" than most other cities in America that literally have little to none. Of course, I think we SHOULD set our standards MUCH MUCH higher because LA is a world-class city. I once bumped into an Argentinian tourist on Bunker Hill, and he told me that after visiting cities like Paris and NYC, he just AUTOMATICALLY assumed without much thought that LA would have a superior mass transit system because he said LA is considered world-class in Argentina. So it's analogous to what tourists feel about HOLLY-WOOD, which is usually disappointment. They have all these expectations about how great LA is going to be, and then when they get here, they're like "WTF?" And part of that is our lack of MASS TRANSIT that is used and promoted by the city. In other parts of the world, MASS TRANSIT is part of daily vernacular and expected that MIDDLE CLASS ride it. Here? LOL Well, let's just say I get "Oh you poor thing!" when I tell people I sold my car and I now take the bus and train.

[Wright Concept]

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-runway1aug01,1,2066513.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california

LAX Expansion Will Raise Cancer Risk, Study Finds
By Jennifer Oldham
Times Staff Writer

August 1, 2005

Moving the southernmost runway at Los Angeles International Airport 55 feet for safety reasons will expose nearby residents to increased cancer risk and noise over an eight-month period during construction, according to an environmental impact report to be released today.

Closing the runway during the work will force officials to redistribute flights among LAX's three other runways, requiring aircraft to taxi greater distances and idle longer — increasing harmful emissions, according to the 1,370-page study.

Changing landing and takeoff patterns will also subject residents in Los Angeles, Inglewood and Westchester to more noise, classroom disturbances and sleep disruptions, concluded the report, completed by an architectural and engineering firm for the city's airport agency.

Traffic generated by construction isn't expected to markedly affect communities, the study said, because trucks will operate during off-peak hours and be directed away from residential streets to freeways.

The study, required under state law, provides an early look at problems to be faced by communities that surround LAX. Shifting the runway south — scheduled to start next year and take 26 months — is the first in a series of major projects planned to update the aging facility in the next decade.

Repositioning the 11,096-foot runway and building a new taxiway is a massive undertaking that will require workers to remove the old runway and install 600,000 square yards of 19-inch thick concrete — enough to build more than 40 miles of two-lane road.

It will also require contractors to haul 225 million tons of dirt from the site.

Airport officials have argued for years that they must move the runway closer to tiny El Segundo and install a taxiway in between the two runways on the airport's south side to reduce the possibility of collisions between aircraft.

About 80% of runway safety violations at LAX occur on those runways, because pilots who land on the southernmost one must traverse a series of taxiways and cross another runway before they reach the terminal.

"This project is about increasing the margin of safety for everyone using the airport, as well as the airport's neighbors," Paul Haney, a spokesman for Los Angeles World Airports, the city's airport agency, said Sunday.

"There is no way to gain the needed increase in the margin of safety without construction activity. We're committed to do everything feasible to compress the length of the construction project and to mitigate its impacts."

The amount of increased noise and air pollution that will result from moving the runway could come as a surprise to many living in the area.

"I don't think people have really considered this, and it's kind of tough to conceptualize from our point of view," Kelly McDowell, mayor of El Segundo, said Sunday.

The city of El Segundo is one of several airport-area municipalities that have challenged Los Angeles' $11-billion LAX modernization plan in court, claiming environmental studies for the entire proposal understate the effects of noise, pollution and traffic.

It's unclear if construction on the south runway could begin before the lawsuit is resolved. The next hearing is scheduled on Oct. 14 in Riverside County Superior Court.

The entire modernization plan would dramatically rework LAX. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has said he approves of the most popular projects in the plan, including moving the south runway, but wants to eliminate its most controversial elements, including a passenger check-in center near the 405 Freeway.

Most residents and legislators interviewed about the environmental impact study, completed by Kansas City, Mo.-based architecture and engineering company HNTB, said they hadn't received the report and couldn't comment on its contents. But they did express concern about the short-term effects of construction on the south runway on their quality of life.

"I know there will be some very upset people," said Denny Schneider, who sits on the board of the Westchester Neighbors Assn. "I, at least, have soundproofing. I put it in — I can afford it. I have neighbors that can't."

Construction on LAX's south runway is likely to expose several thousand residents to more noise, the study found. Six schools will experience higher noise levels during the eight-month period, it concluded.

Quantifying health risks is more complicated. If residents were exposed to air pollution that will result from construction for a period of 70 years, there could be a risk of 19 additional cancer cases per million people, according to the report.

Airport officials said it's important to note that air pollution and noise effects shown in the study result not only from construction but also from recent increases in operations at LAX.

The effects are greater because, to determine how the project would affect surrounding communities, consultants compared aircraft operations in 2005 with the number of operations the airport served in 2003.

That year, air traffic was down markedly after carriers pulled flights following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Iraq war and an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome. This year, operations are rebounding and are expected to hit record levels in 2006.

[Wright Concept]

Monday, October 03, 2005
Mayor wants an end to LAX battle
Hoping to settle pending lawsuits, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa holds meeting of city, county representatives.
By David Zahniser
Copley News Service

After weeks of delays and distractions, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has restarted settlement talks in hopes of ending six lawsuits filed to stop the $11 billion plan for overhauling Los Angeles International Airport.

Villaraigosa on Thursday quietly convened a group of roughly 40 city, county and community representatives -- including Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and former Los Angeles City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter -- to focus on an agreement that would end the yearlong court battle.

Although no one would say with certainty how soon an agreement could be reached, the process is on such a fast track that lawyers in the various cases will meet again Sunday, from 1 to 5 p.m. at Los Angeles World Airports offices.

"When you try to get that many attorneys (together) that have that many other cases, it's hard to set a timeline," said Galanter, who attended as a representative of the Alliance for a Regional Solution to Airport Congestion. "Everyone seems anxious to get it done."

Lawyers and elected officials say they still believe there is a chance that all parties could reach a settlement before a pivotal Oct. 14 court hearing on the case.

"There's an outside force that's greater than any of us, and that is the judge in Riverside," said El Segundo Mayor Kelly McDowell, who attended Thursday's settlement session. "It's an absolute deadline that everybody is staring down the barrel of."

LAWA has been reluctant to ask the judge in the case for a delay beyond Oct. 14, out of fears that such a move would keep it from moving ahead on the first major project in the LAX plan: realigning the airport's south runways, considered a major initiative to reduce the potential for runway collisions.

"(Airport officials) don't want to postpone court decisions that would potentially implicate the south runway one way or the other," said Carlyle Hall, the outside attorney representing LAWA on the LAX plan.

Settlement talks were started under former Mayor James Hahn but were placed on hold after Villaraigosa's election in May. With the negotiations newly restarted, the airport commission will be asked on Monday to give two outside law firms, including Hall's, an additional $690,000, part of which would go toward settlement negotiations.

The two firms have already billed the city $4.95 million since 2004, mostly for work on the airport project.

Thursday's settlement meeting was also attended by representatives of Supervisor Don Knabe and City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, mayors from Inglewood and El Segundo, and airport commission President Alan Rothenberg, who participated by speakerphone.

The Los Angeles City Council approved the airport overhaul last year on a 10-3 vote. Villaraigosa, one of the three opposing votes, wants to eliminate $8 billion worth of projects contained in the modernization plan, particularly a proposed remote passenger check-in facility east of the airport.

The settlement talks are being watched closely by community activists who persuaded the council to approve a "community benefits agreement," a $500 million package of environmental initiatives that includes soundproofing and a major air quality survey.

If the size of the airport plan is reduced, the package could decrease in size as well, said former Inglewood Councilman Danny Tabor.

"We know that that's a possibility," Tabor said. "What we're hopeful for is that the administration and LAWA will talk to us before they agree on any final things."

Other cities near LAX have laid out their own lists of demands. El Segundo, for example, has been pushing for roughly $36 million in road and traffic improvements to address airport traffic. Los Angeles provided a counteroffer of $31 million, which was rejected by El Segundo.

"I think it's a fair statement that all the different plaintiff groups have generated ideas that would cost substantial money," said Hall, the airport's outside attorney.

Pulling the LAX plan apart has been considered a tricky prospect since so many of the individual airport projects are interconnected. Later elements of the plan, such as the passenger check-in facility, are designed to address the environmental harm caused by components that would be built earlier.

Still, Galanter was hopeful that all the parties will come up with a solution to end the litigation.

"The basic word for it all is optimistic," said the former councilwoman, who represented LAX and Westchester for most of her 16-year tenure. "And when have you heard me sound optimistic?"

Daily Breeze staff writer Doug Irving contributed to this article.

[Wright Concept]

What’s Next for LAX?
By AMANDA BRONSTAD - 10/10/2005
Los Angeles Business Journal Staff


The L.A. City Attorney’s office is close to settling a lawsuit filed by neighborhood groups and cities surrounding Los Angeles International Airport over portions of an $11 billion overhaul.

If the litigation gets resolved, it could give Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa the legal authority to significantly change former Mayor James Hahn’s Master Plan, which has been approved by the City Council and the Federal Aviation Administration.

Villaraigosa envisions a scaled-down version of the project that would limit expansion at LAX while encouraging a regional air traffic network in Los Angeles. Such a plan would reduce the cost of improving LAX by about one-third and eliminate controversial projects such as building an off-site check-in facility.

The mayor also has replaced several of the people who were involved in approving Hahn’s Master Plan, including the Board of Airport Commissioners. Last week, he replaced the executive director of the city’s airport department, Kim Day, with Lydia Kennard, a vocal opponent of the overhaul proposal who returned to the top post after resigning in 2003.

“There is a level of optimism that the mayor is going to bring a different view toward the airport, and that we really see that as an opportunity,” said Tony Gonzales, vice president of HNTB Architecture Group, lead contractor on the first project of the Master Plan. “It’s been a general overview that we need to re-think the plan.”


Yellow vs. green
Villaraigosa would unravel much of the work of former Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, who appeased opponents by separating projects that were “green-lighted,” or ready to be implemented, with those that were “yellow-lighted,” which could not be built without further discussions and approvals by the council.


Green-lighted projects include moving the southern runways farther south, building a consolidated rental car facility, and constructing a tram-like people mover that would drop off passengers arriving on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Green Line. Yellow-lighted projects include the off-site check-in center and the demolition of Terminals 1, 2 and 3, which would close passenger access to the central terminal area.


“The plan can change,” said Miscikowski recently. “The plan has flexibility.”
Villaraigosa was one of three councilmembers to vote against the plan because he said it focuses too much on LAX instead of other airports in the region. “We shouldn’t put all our marbles in one basket,” he said at the time.

The mayor’s office did not return calls for comment.

Gonzales said he has not been told anything specific about the mayor’s views on the airport, but expects most of the changes to center on yellow-lighted projects. He speculated that the green-lighted projects, while likely to remain part of the plan, may face smaller changes centered on layout, location and function.

Opponents of the so-called consensus plan drafted by Miscikowski say that the concept behind the green-lighted and yellow-lighted projects was never clear.

Denny Schneider, vice president of the Alliance for a Regional Solution to Airport Congestion, said he isn’t sure that “Cindy’s idea of a yellow-lighted project really changed anything. And I don’t think there ever really was a consensus.”

In order to remove those projects from the plan, Villaraigosa must end a court battle that impedes his ability to change parts of the plan.

In several lawsuits that were consolidated in Riverside Superior Court earlier this year, the cities of El Segundo and Inglewood, Los Angeles County, ARSAC and other neighborhood groups claim that the approved LAX Master Plan would exceed a cap on passenger capacity and increase noise, traffic and other environmental hazards in the area. The City Attorney’s Office has maintained that eliminating projects altogether would render the plan void and require starting from scratch.

The conflicting legal opinions are taking over much of the discussion about the LAX improvements. Last week, the City Attorney’s Office was in settlement talks that could allow the mayor to begin making changes to the plan. A hearing on those talks is set for Nov. 18.

Assistant City Attorney Raymond Ilgunas replaced Claudia Culling as the City Attorney’s representative in the settlement discussions. Culling was the city attorney in charge of helping craft the $11 billion plan.

“I’m hopeful the settlement discussions will resolve a good number of the issues that are right now before the group,” said Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who succeeded Miscikowski in the 11th district. “The yellow lights should be red lights, should be stopped and off the drawing boards, but that remains to be seen as the settlement discussions go.”

The return of Kennard as executive director suggests that changes to the original Hahn plan are in the works. In her tenure, Day took a leading role in pushing through the controversial Hahn plan.

“Certainly, that’s the most significant development to have someone in place who is willing to carry out this mayor’s vision,” said Councilman Jack Weiss, who expressed concerns last year about the security aspects of Hahn’s plan. “Having Ms. Kennard in that position will be critical to this.”

Meanwhile, a number of projects have already moved forward.

At the forefront is the first of the green-lighted projects, to move the southern runways 55 feet to the south in order to prevent runway incursions, which are incidents of aircraft coming to close to each other, on the south airfield.

A contract to reconstruct those runways could be awarded as early as November, said Paul Haney, spokesman for Los Angeles World Airports, the city’s airport department that operates LAX, Ontario International, Van Nuys and Palmdale Regional. Construction is expected to begin in January.

No timelines have been set on any other green-lighted projects.

Another $1.4 billion in projects unrelated to the LAX Master Plan have begun under a three-year capital improvement plan. Those projects include interior remodeling of the Tom Bradley International Terminal and new baggage screening systems that would be located behind ticket counters instead of the airport lobby.

[Wright Concept]

Tuesday, October 25, 2005
LAX works to make room for jumbo-jumbo jets
L.A. jockeys for the title of "gateway to the East," but the super-sized planes will come at a hefty price tag for the airport.
By Doug Irving
Daily Breeze

A new era of air travel will thunder into Southern California in the next few years, a mammoth jetliner with the power to rattle the regional economy.

Los Angeles will spend millions of dollars preparing for the arrival of the Airbus A380 super-jumbo jet. But airlines remain unconvinced that LAX will be ready to handle more than a few of the giant planes at the level of service they demand.



They need only look a few hundred miles to the north to find an airport ready and eager to lure the new planes -- and with them, the lucrative routes across the Pacific Ocean. San Francisco has opened a gleaming international terminal built with the A380 in mind, complete with luxury lounges and hallways lined with fine art.

The stakes in this competition are as oversized as the planes themselves. Every A380 that lands will spill hundreds of tourists and business travelers into the local economy. The planes could secure Los Angeles' position as the gateway to the East, but they could also give San Francisco a growing claim to that title.

"We're out in front," said Jesse Blout, director of economic and work force development for the San Francisco Mayor's Office. "That certainly suggests that we would have a head start on new routes."

The A380 is longer than the fabled Spruce Goose, with wings that stretch almost as far as a football field. Its double-decked cabin has room for 555 seats. Airlines have even talked about installing health clubs and bedrooms, lounges and game rooms.

The planes will take over the longest routes at first, replacing existing aircraft on those day-and-night marathons that span oceans and continents. That makes them even more valuable as economic movers; their passengers will be carrying euros and yen to spend, or business contracts to sign.

Even smaller domestic routes can create thousands of jobs and pour millions of dollars into the local economy, a recent study by the Bay Area Economic Forum found. An international A380 route would only multiply that windfall, Forum President Sean Randolph said.

"These aircraft are coming," he said. "We'd better be able to accommodate them."

That's not so easy. The new planes are bigger than anything now parked at the passenger terminals. And they will bear the colors of airlines that compete in luxury as much as convenience.

In the next few weeks, workers at Los Angeles International Airport will begin refashioning a corner gate in the international terminal for the new planes. That project alone will cost $7 million.

A second gate will follow, on the other side of the terminal. Both will have two loading bridges for the double decks of the A380.

The airport also plans to renovate its remote terminals to accommodate the big planes. Those are more than a mile from the regular passenger terminals, a short bus ride across the airfield.

The airlines investing big money in the big planes have made it clear they don't want their passengers riding a bus at the end of a 13-hour voyage. They have told the airport that the remote gates would not meet the level of service they expect.

That means the airport will have only the two renovated gates available for the new jetliners and deemed adequate by the airlines. That shouldn't present any problems in the new few years, because only a few of the big planes are scheduled to touch down at LAX.

But it could become a big problem as soon as the airport finds itself with three A380s on the ground and only two direct gates. That might happen as early as 2008 or 2009, according to the airport's projections.

"If you're not prepared to handle it, then you lose your status as the international gateway," said Frank Clark, executive director of the LAX Terminal Equity Corp., an entity owned by the air carriers that use the international terminal.

Los Angeles "is the place they want to be," Clark added. "But they're not locked into it."

They have San Francisco beckoning. The Bay Area has long competed with Los Angeles to attract international business and tourists. It, too, considers itself an important gateway to the East.

San Francisco International Airport already has five gates in its international terminal that could accommodate the new planes. It welcomes visitors with top-of-the-line baggage carousels, a large immigration area and a $10 million art collection.

The San Francisco airport called a press conference more than a year ago to announce it was ready for the new aircraft. An Airbus official declared at the time that the early preparations would surely enhance the airport's status as a gateway for the planes.

"We can have one land tomorrow and be ready for it" in the terminal, airport spokesman Mike McCarron boasted recently.

LAX officials have talked about renovating more gates inside the international terminal to make them ready for the new planes. But those plans have not yet reached a level of detail or certainty to comfort the airlines, Clark said.

The airport also finds itself locked in a legal and political battle over its future. The airlines are watching to make sure that doesn't delay other key projects, such as shifting a runway to give planes more room to maneuver.

"The big concern is, will LAX be ready" for the big planes, said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. "This is a real challenge for us. This is very, very significant for Los Angeles."

The first of the planes is scheduled to go into service late next year, on a Singapore-to-Sydney route.

LAX officials expect an A380 with a Qantas flag to land in Los Angeles for the first time in April 2007. They believe that at least seven carriers will bring the big plane to LAX in the years that follow, making it the plane's top U.S. destination.

Los Angeles makes sense as a major stop on the international route map for the A380, said James Boyd, a spokesman for Singapore Airlines.

But so does San Francisco and, for that matter, New York. The airline has not yet announced exactly where in North America it plans to fly the big plane.

Nor has Lufthansa. Airline spokesman Tom Tripp said LAX is on a short list of possible destinations, but added that the use of remote gates "is not attractive."

"They're not quite there yet," Tripp said. "We're hoping to work with them. ... We'll have to wait and see which airports are ready."

[DJM19]

they should build docking spaces for the large planes on the other side of the Tom Bradley Terminal, and push back that cross-way thats currently there.

[Wright Concept]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lax7nov07,1,5825788.story?coll=la-headlines-california

Seeking a More Secure LAX
City officials may hire the Rand Corp. to help come up with measures, such as shortening lines, designed to better protect airport patrons.
By Jennifer Oldham
Times Staff Writer

November 7, 2005

More than a year after a security study concluded that people waiting on sidewalks and in lobbies at Los Angeles International Airport are at risk from bombs in cars and suitcases, the city's Airport Commission is expected to take action today to significantly reduce crowds.

Commissioners are considering offering a $900,000 contract to the Rand Corp., the firm that drafted the study. Rand would work with the airport, airlines and the federal Transportation Security Administration to speed travelers through terminals into more secure gate areas.

The move would be an about-face for Los Angeles World Airports, which is overseen by the commission. The agency concluded earlier this year that it could not significantly shorten lines in the near term because it would require a third more ticket agents and security screeners.

A report to the commission from the airport staff demonstrates a newfound urgency, including a recommendation that the contract be awarded to Rand.

"Not approving this item will delay LAWA's efforts to act upon recommendations already presented by the Rand Corp. to improve security," the six-page report said. "This delay could potentially expose LAWA to significant loss of life, extensive property damage and increased liability in the event of a terrorist attack."

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was sharply critical of predecessor Mayor James K. Hahn for not implementing Rand's recommendations. Villaraigosa has said repeatedly that he expects the airport agency to work with the nonprofit.

"The mayor himself will push to make sure we can do everything we can do as quickly as possible," said Maurice Suh, deputy mayor for homeland security and public safety. "We don't want to sit and wait through a long bureaucratic litigation process to keep our Los Angeles travelers safe."

The commission's consideration of a contract with the Santa Monica firm comes a month after Lydia Kennard, known for her security efforts at LAX after the Sept. 11 attacks, returned to the agency. Kennard and the commission were handpicked by the mayor.

"Whatever it takes to protect the traveling public here is a very important goal and we intend to meet it," Kennard said. "I'm very optimistic that we can strike a good partnership with the airlines and the TSA. We must have a can-do attitude."

Security experts said the 13-month delay since the wide-ranging Rand report was released has set the airport back in the race to keep up with terrorists.

"We've fallen a half-step behind — we have to catch up," said Donald Stevens, a senior engineer at Rand and lead author of the report. "Terrorists are changing already. The bombs they used in London are much more sophisticated bombs than they were using previously — they used a different substance, they weren't nitrogen-based."

Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) commissioned a previous Rand study that concluded that a passenger check-in center in Hahn's $11-billion modernization plan for LAX would have made passengers more vulnerable to attack. She said she was confident the new mayor and his commission would move quickly to enhance security at the airport.

"I'm thrilled Rand and LAWA have reconnected, but I won't break out the champagne until the shatterproof glass and barriers are in place," she said. "The public that uses LAX should be a lot safer real soon."

During the nine-month contract, Rand would study short-term security improvements at LAX and Ontario International Airport.

Rand would assess the "acceptable density" of passengers in terminal lobbies and figure out the most efficient rate to move vehicles through security checkpoints on streets outside LAX.

Using data available from the Defense Department, Rand researchers would consider a range of technologies to screen passengers, baggage, cargo and cars, including scales to weigh vehicles to check for larger bombs.

Officials expect to take a close look at a blast-resistant film that covers glass to prevent it from shattering during a bomb attack. The coating doesn't protect windows a few feet from a bomb blast, but would help strengthen those in adjacent terminals.

In an IRA bombing in London, Stevens said, "over half of the deaths were due to shard glass, so this might be something that would be a big help. We have to look at the cost and the effectiveness."

Rand would also develop an "immediate action" plan to implement their recommendations and other security enhancements.

Rand's previous analysis — which considered potential casualties from car bombs, mortars, snipers and surface-to-air missiles — was the first public review of the airport's vulnerabilities and the most cost-effective ways to fix them.

After finding that people on sidewalks and in lobbies were at risk from car and luggage bombs, Rand urged the city to reduce crowds and to establish permanent checkpoints at LAX entrances to search vehicles for bombs.

Rand said that only a 5% increase in airline employees would be necessary to reduce lines at ticket counters to a waiting time of five to seven minutes. Average waits at ticket counters are about 40 minutes during peak travel times.

But the airlines have disputed that finding, saying every terminal has a different layout and passenger-arrival pattern, making it difficult to generalize.

"If this could be solved by hiring a few people, we would do that, but our analysis didn't show that," said Dennis Olson, managing director for the LAX Airport Airlines Affairs Committee, a trade group that represents carriers. "I think it's the right time and place to sit down with Rand and make sure we're making the right decisions."

Airline representatives also say that they're dealing with antiquated infrastructure that prevents them from adding more ticket agents to process passengers.

"During our peak periods at noon and 22:00 at night, we're using already today 180 of the 188 ticket counters, so the ability to add staffing is nominal," said Frank Clark, executive director of the nonprofit organization that represents carriers operating at Tom Bradley International Terminal.

International carriers would rather use self-service kiosks, like those available in other terminals, to help speed up the check-in process and reduce lines, he said.

As airlines cope with long lines at ticket counters, the lines at security checkpoints — particularly those in Terminal 1, Terminal 4 and the Bradley Terminal — receded in the last year after the airport installed additional lanes.

New checkpoint lanes "significantly reduced the wait time, and significantly reduced the security hazard," said Larry Fetters, the TSA's federal security director at LAX.

But he added that he didn't get additional screeners to staff the new lanes, saying the TSA would have to work with the airlines, the airport agency and Rand to figure out ways to further reduce lines without more workers.

"Additional resources are not forthcoming," Fetters said. "In the 2006 budget, the staffing level for screeners was cut from 45,000 to 43,000. We're probably going to take a hit of 100 people when it's finalized at LAX, just as passenger flow and flights are going up."

==============================================

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-briefs8.2nov08,1,870378.story?coll=la-headlines-california

IN BRIEF LOS ANGELES COUNTY / LOS ANGELES
Rand to Begin Efforts to Improve LAX Security
From Times Staff and Wire Reports

November 8, 2005

The city's Airport Commission voted unanimously Monday to award the Rand Corp. a $900,000 contract to research security enhancements at Los Angeles International Airport.

The Santa Monica nonprofit will work to implement recommendations it made 13 months ago. These include moving travelers more quickly from lobbies and sidewalks — where they are more at risk of a bomb attack — into the more secure gate areas.

The firm will also research how to screen private vehicles before they enter the airport.

"While this contract is nine months long, expect us to move much quicker than that," said Jim Ritchie, an LAX official.

[Wright Concept]

USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2005-11-15-runway-near-misses_x.htm
Runway near misses prompt urgent safety concern
By Alan Levin

WASHINGTON — Close calls between jets happen with alarming frequency on the nation's runways and federal regulators need to find better ways to curb the problem, the National Transportation Safety Board ruled Tuesday.

The NTSB said that existing runway safety systems are trouble-plagued and the government has been slow to make improvements. The findings were released as part of the agency's annual "Most Wanted" transportation safety enhancements for the U.S. aviation system. (Related video: NTSB animates near miss at Boston airport)

"This is a safety issue and needs to be fixed," said John Clark, chief of the NTSB aviation safety division.

The most deadly crash in aviation history occurred in 1977 when two Boeing 747s collided in the Canary Islands, killing 583 people. Thirty-four people died in Los Angeles in 1991 when a jet collided with a commuter plane on a runway.

Despite numerous safety efforts, runway incidents have stubbornly refused to fall in recent years. In the fiscal year ending Oct. 31, there were 324 runway incidents, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees aviation safety regulations. Most posed little risk of a crash, but as many as 30 serious near collisions occur each year.

The NTSB highlighted several near collisions Tuesday. In each case, a flawed warning system put in place by the FAA did not prevent the incident:

On June 6 in Boston, an Aer Lingus Airbus A330 and a US Airways Boeing 737 nearly slammed into each other as they raced toward takeoff on intersecting runways. The warning system, which tracks jets on the ground with radar, was not programmed to issue an alarm on intersecting runways.

On July 6, an Israeli 767 passenger jet and an Airborne Express DC-8 cargo jet nearly collided at Kennedy International Airport in New York as the Airborne jet accelerated for takeoff. The safety system had been shut off because its radar did not work well in the rain.

On Sept. 22 in Las Vegas, an Air Canada A319 and an America West A320 nearly hit as the America West jet took off. The warning system issued an alarm, but too late for controllers to take action.

The FAA is changing the software on its warning systems to prevent incidents like the one in Boston. It also is rolling out enhanced systems that will work better in the rain. This year, it began testing a new system that will for the first time warn pilots when they are at risk of colliding with another plane.

"We are attacking the runway safety issue," FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said.

The NTSB also voted to keep several other issues on its most wanted list: preventing dangerous ice on aircraft wings, reducing the risks that jet fuel tanks can explode and improving "black box" recorders to give investigators better data after crashes. The agency, which has no regulatory power, uses the meeting to highlight what it sees as the most important safety issues.

[Wright Concept]

Deal cut to halt LAX lawsuits
City agrees to limit passengers, noise
By Rick Orlov, Staff Writer
LA Daily News

Los Angeles city officials will announce today that they have cut a deal to end litigation over the modernization of LAX, with opponents agreeing to trust the mayor and City Council to abandon the most controversial elements of the $11 billion plan.
Under the proposed settlement, the grass-roots Alliance for a Regional Solution to Airport Congestion and other opponents will drop lawsuits that have stalled the controversial plan for Los Angeles International Airport developed by former Mayor James Hahn.

In exchange, the city promises to limit passenger traffic by gradually closing airplane gates, to give critics and neighbors a greater voice in upgrading one of the nation's busiest airports, and to help fund noise- and traffic-mitigation projects in their communities.

"This is an historic day of developing trust and friendship with our neighbors," Airport Executive Director Lydia Kennard said at a briefing Wednesday, in advance of a formal announcement today.

The proposed settlement would allow $4 billion in runway and other improvements, but does not resolve for certain some of the more hotly contested elements of the plan, including an off-site ground transportation center where all passengers and baggage would be screened.

While it still needs approval from a variety of agencies, including the Federal Aviation Administration, the City Council and the county Board of Supervisors, the agreement would end all pending lawsuits and the parties would agree to no further legal action involving the master plan.

The deal had been urged by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and LAX-area Councilman Bill Rosendahl, and was hammered out over the past three weeks. Aides said the mayor met with all the principals in late September and early October, as well as holding several private sessions in his City Hall offices to push the settlement.

"I am elated that at long last, we have the ability to move forward with a rational, community-sensitive plan," said a statement issued by Villaraigosa, who was attending a meeting of the nation's mayors at Harvard University.

Debate and legal challenges have marked the effort to improve LAX since former Mayor Richard Riordan first proposed the idea in 1993. At one point, he suggested expanding the airport to 100 million passengers a year and tripling the amount of cargo it handles.

Hahn revised the plan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to emphasize security. However, the plan came under fire by security experts, who said an off-site terminal would actually increase the potential for terrorism by concentrating all passengers in one place.

After protests and lawsuits, Hahn agreed to a scaled-back version that created a two-tier program that would "green-light" projects such as runway improvements and "yellow-light" those that required more study. The scaled-back plan also limited the number of passengers to less than 79 million a year.

In his mayoral campaign, Villaraigosa pledged to scrap nearly all "yellow-light" projects - including the off-site terminal - and to urge a regional approach to air travel.

Councilman Bernard Parks, an outspoken critic of the Hahn plan, said he had yet to be briefed on the proposed deal, but that his main concerns remain adopting a regional approach to air traffic and eliminating the ground-transportation center.

A key element of the settlement proposal involves limiting passenger traffic at LAX, which is expected to hit 63 million this year.

The FAA does not allow airports to cap the number of passengers, but Kennard said LAX can be designed to limit growth. Once annual passenger traffic hits 75 million, the airport would shut down two gates a year for the next five years.

That would reduce the number of airport gates from the current 163 to 153, limiting the number of flights that could be accommodated, although much larger planes are expected to come into use in the years ahead.

The deal also would commit the city to a 30-month timetable for studying all other projects in the plan to determine which should proceed and which should be abandoned - including a ground transportation center, a people-mover and the razing of Terminals 1, 2 and 3 in favor of a new concourse.

The settlement, however, would allow plans for a new Western Satellite Concourse - at an estimated cost of $1.6 billion - and for work to proceed on a new baggage-handling facility.

In addition, Kennard said Los Angeles World Airports, the city's airports department, is reserving the right to look at other projects that had been earlier cleared for approval, such as a separate facility for rental cars.

Those are some of the elements being reviewed by the Rand Corp., an early critic of the Hahn plan, which has since been retained to conduct a security study of the airport.

The department agreed to speed payments totaling $266 million for noise and traffic mitigation projects in neighboring cities, paying it over 10 years rather than the 15 years originally envisioned.

There also would be a separate community-benefits program valued at $500 million that would provide jobs and training as well as mitigation projects.

The airports department also agreed to form a working group of officials to develop plans to increase use of Ontario and Palmdale airports - including transportation improvements - and agreed to establish eight Park and Ride FlyAway operations around the county.

"The main thing we won was an opportunity to bring a group of people together to get them to agree on a rational approach to development at the airport," Rosendahl said. "We have never had that.

"Now, we will sit down and be able to take this out of the world of litigation and work together on modernization and, more importantly, work immediately to improve traffic safety."

For master-plan opponents, the proposed deal was viewed as a way to have a say on the airport's future growth.

"We think this is a turning point in the future of LAX," said Jan Chatten-Brown, attorney for the ARSAC, the citizens group that filed the initial legal action against the airport plan.

"I think the most important things are that this will give us input into how the airport is developed and have the airport take a real approach to seeking a regional solution to the air transportation needs," Chatten-Brown said.

El Segundo Mayor Kelly McDowell - whose city has fought for decades with Los Angeles over the airport - said the settlement addresses the main concerns of his residents.

"What we wanted from Day One, what all the petitioners wanted, was a way to limit capacity at LAX," McDowell said. "I believe this settlement achieves that."

"This is something where both sides gave up something," McDowell said. "We think this will end up being good for El Segundo and for LAX."

Kennard said she believes the proposed deal could be approved by the start of the new year, with a goal of starting construction on widening the airport's south runways early next year.

Work already has started on the Tom Bradley International Terminal and a baggage-loading facility, airport officials said. Kennard said the mayor and airport officials will decide which additional projects might be accelerated, such as securing funding to bring the Green Line light rail into LAX, and road, communication and parking-lot improvements.

Rick Orlov, (213) 978-0390 rick.orlov@dailynews.com



PROPOSED LAX SETTLEMENT

Here of some of the provisions of the proposed settlement:

Reduce the number of gates in operation by two a year, to a maximum of 10, once annual passenger traffic reaches 75 million.

Develop a 30-month process for reviewing all issues and projects including a ground-transportation center, noise, traffic and pollution.

Invite the Federal Aviation Administration, the Southern California Association of Governments, neighboring counties and airport operators to form a working group to develop a regional air transportation plan.

Develop a regional plan to encourage greater use of Palmdale and Ontario airports.

Create a working group with Alliance for a Regional Solution to Airport Congestion to deal with LAX neighbors' concerns.

Provide $266 million to Los Angeles County, Inglewood, El Segundo and other affected areas for noise and traffic mitigation.

[LosAngelesBeauty]

Villaraigosa Announces LAX Settlement



By HOWARD FINE - 12/1/2005
Los Angeles Business Journal Staff

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Thursday announced a settlement with three cities, the county and a neighborhood group that had sued to stop a massive overhaul of Los Angeles International Airport.


The agreement calls for Los Angeles officials to suspend major portions of the plan, including a controversial remote check-in facility, reduce the number of aircraft gates at the airport and provide an additional $240 million in soundproofing to nearby homes.


In exchange, the plaintiffs agreed to drop their lawsuit and allow work to proceed early next year on $1.2 billion in improvements to the south runway and the Tom Bradley International Terminal and the installation of explosives detectors at baggage screening sites.


“I am elated that at last we have the ability to move forward with a rational, community-sensitive plan for LAX that allows for sensible improvements for the people of Los Angeles. This will be a world-class airport for a world-class city,” Villaraigosa said at a press conference announcing the settlement.


Airport officials said Thursday that a revised modernization plan that includes surface traffic improvements around the airport and plans to upgrade Ontario and Palmdale Airports (also owned by the city) would be crafted over the next year. That plan will then take another 18 months to garner the necessary environmental approvals, meaning any additional work would not begin until late 2008.


The settlement was greeted with praise from a wide array of local elected officials at Thursday’s press conference, including El Segundo Mayor Kelly McDowell. “El Segundo has fought LAX and its plans for unconstrained growth for nearly 10 years now. Today’s breakthrough agreement constrains growth at LAX and helps jump-start a truly regional aviation plan.”


Villaraigosa campaigned against the $11 billion overhaul plan put forward three years ago by former L.A. Mayor James Hahn. That plan had come under intense fire from neighbors concerned it wouldn’t cap growth at the airport. It also drew criticism in a study by the Rand Corp. that said a remote passenger parking and check-in facility would actually increase the risk of casualties from a terrorist attack.


Villaraigosa also voted against a compromise crafted by former Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski last year. The deal split off the most controversial elements of the plan for further study.


Shortly after taking office, Villaraigosa overhauled the Board of Airport Commissioners, replaced Los Angeles World Airports Executive Director Kim Day with former airport director Lydia Kennard and started settlement talks with the plaintiffs who had filed their lawsuit earlier this year.


The settlement announced Thursday must still be ratified by the Los Angeles City Council, the city councils of the three plaintiff cities, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and the Federal Aviation Administration. Local approvals are expected swiftly, but FAA action may take longer because of the unprecedented reduction in the number of gates at one of the nation’s busiest airports.


That reduction, which would kick in once annual passenger count tops 75 million, would take the number of gates from 163 to 153. Airline representatives are expected to lobby fiercely against this reduction.


On Thursday, a spokesman for the Air Transport Association, which represents the major commercial air carriers, said airline officials had not gotten a detailed look at the settlement and were thus not in a position to comment.


Meanwhile, the most controversial and expensive elements of the Hahn plan – the remote check-in facility at Manchester Square and the demolition of three northside terminals – are effectively dead. Villaraigosa and airport officials said Thursday they would look at alternative ideas to reduce surface congestion. They also said they are awaiting the results of a second Rand Corp. study on security before coming up with alternatives; that study is due out early next year.


As part of the settlement announced Thursday, two elements of the Hahn-Miscikowski plan that were supposed to be fast-tracked – construction of a consolidated car rental facility and a people-mover system to connect the Metro Rail Green Line to the airport – are being set aside for further study. Airport officials insisted at Thursday’s press conference that those elements will still go forward, but only after the revised plan is presented and approved.

[Milton]

^^The people mover is a key component in reducing traffic by directly linking the green line and car rental facilities! I can't understand why it would need to be delayed again any longer regardless of the settlement plan. It smells like special interest money at work again. Anything to further delay any traffic improvements.

[Wright Concept]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-lax2dec02,0,4230223.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials

EDITORIAL
Well-grounded at LAX

December 2, 2005

AFTER 10 YEARS, TWO MAYORS and $150 million, a plan had finally been cobbled together to improve Los Angeles International Airport. On Thursday it was wiped from the screen, canceled like a flight to Buffalo in January. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

There is plenty to like, and some not to like, about the city's deal with the airport's neighbors — a deal that largely scotched former Mayor James K. Hahn's ill-conceived master plan to modernize LAX. The main benefit is that it allows construction to proceed on three vital projects: a rebuilding of the southern runway complex, a renovation of the Tom Bradley International Terminal and an overhaul of the airport baggage system. The work is critical to improve airport safety and prepare it for the Airbus A380 super-jumbo jet, slated to hit commercial airways in a year.

The city can also celebrate the fact that the bulk of Hahn's master plan has been shelved. The $11-billion project would not have added capacity or boosted the area's economy, and its effect on security was highly debatable. Many aspects of the blueprint will probably survive, but the plan is up for review again and its most questionable proposals, including a remote check-in center near the San Diego Freeway, are doubtless history.

Less beneficial is an agreement to limit growth. Because the airport can't legally cap the number of flights or passengers, it came up with a back-door way of satisfying the local community: If by 2010 the yearly passenger count hits 75 million (it's around 62 million now), the airport will remove two gates a year for five years, reducing the total from 163 to 153. But the notion of choking further growth by inflicting delays is nonsensical — and an inconvenience to the flying public. It's even a bad idea for neighboring areas; more planes idling on the tarmac means more pollution. The fact is, LAX will remain an important but congested gateway for years to come. It's important for the city to promote its most efficient use, not to sign on to plans to dismember it over time.

With the master plan up for reconsideration, the biggest danger now is further delay. An airport spokesman says the settlement won't push back future improvements; by the time the current projects are finished, new ones will have been approved. That's pretty optimistic. Some projects, such as a direct rail or bus connection from LAX to L.A.'s public-transit hub at Union Station, are far too important to be put on indefinite hold.

Under any scenario, LAX is not going to be able to expand much more. So part of the settlement, naturally, is a ritual call for further study on how to send more air traffic to other regional airports. But all the studies in the world can't change the reality that the airports in Orange County, Burbank and Long Beach also face capacity constraints. As for Ontario and Palmdale airports, the airport authority should promote them heavily, but it's unrealistic to expect them to relieve the pressure at LAX anytime soon. Airline schedules track passenger demand, and LAX is where people want to check in.

[Milton]

^Amen.

[WesTheAngelino]

^^The people mover is a key component in reducing traffic by directly linking the green line and car rental facilities! I can't understand why it would need to be delayed again any longer regardless of the settlement plan. It smells like special interest money at work again. Anything to further delay any traffic improvements.


Parking Companies, parking companies, parking companies.

[yakumoto]

Seriously, in New York the subway doesn't go to JFK, but they have a people mover train that connects the airport to the metro.

[Wright Concept]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-briefs14.2dec14,1,6120106.story?coll=la-headlines-california

IN BRIEF LOS ANGELES COUNTY / LOS ANGELES
FAA Backs Agreement to Shelve LAX Plan
From Times Staff Reports

December 14, 2005

The Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday signed off on an agreement in which the city would shelve its $11-billion modernization plan for Los Angeles International Airport in exchange for nearby communities' dropping their legal challenges.

The FAA approved a plan that could reduce the number of gates, but said it could agree to doing so only through 2015. The city negotiated the proposed settlement with four airport-area cities, Los Angeles County and community groups. It allows for needed runway construction to move forward next year.

[urbanflyer]

when will someone put a stop to this??

[Capt AWACS]

If Burbank stays slot controlled, the LAX "runoff" will be forced to Ontario. AA is losing 5 slots at LGB which B6 will most likely take.
Interesting!

Ciao, and Hook 'em Horns,
Capt-AWACS, Watching you from 30,000 feet (for the government)

[urbanflyer]

international carriers and domestic hub operators will *never* move marquee operations to Ontario.

at any rate, with operations already near-capacity, I'm wondering how the airport authorities propose to continue normal operations while they do all this runway and taxiway work?

[Capt AWACS]

I know the INt'l ops will not, but domestic ops will move if LAX delays become to bad. Southwest will be the first to change ops. They are smart. Continental Express has already put two RJ flights to Mexico (expansion) on hold due to the work at LAX, and a lack of gate space.

Ciao, and Hook 'em Horns,
Capt-AWACS, You may now move about the cabin

[Wright Concept]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-tutor19dec19,1,4741572.story?

Officials Support Builder for LAX Project
Despite mixed reviews, low bidder Tutor-Saliba will probably be hired to revamp the southern runway or the city could lose federal grants.
By Jennifer Oldham
Times Staff Writer

December 19, 2005

Los Angeles city officials are recommending that the Airport Commission on Monday award a $253-million construction contract to Tutor-Saliba Corp., despite a city investigation that found the firm has received mixed reviews on several recent projects.

The Sylmar-based company submitted the lowest bid to rebuild the southern runway complex at Los Angeles International Airport, a project that city and federal officials say is critical to reducing the number of close calls between aircraft.

After Tutor-Saliba bid last summer, the airport staff initiated a routine review of its record, contacting 15 agencies that had hired the firm.

Several, including UCLA and the Los Angeles Unified School District, reported problems on current projects, including delays caused by understaffing and concerns about the quality of work. Others, such as the Port of Los Angeles and the city Department of Public Works, cited a positive experience.

Tutor-Saliba's work in Los Angeles has transformed the city with projects that include the Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX, the Red Line subway and renovations of the Central Library and the Coliseum.

But Tutor-Saliba has drawn attention for some high-profile lapses, including the construction of concrete subway tunnel walls in downtown Los Angeles that were too thin. The company, which was ordered to make repairs, is still waging a court fight over bills it contends are unpaid but that transit officials call fraudulent.

The city's airport agency already has a turbulent relationship with the firm.

"Tutor has had issues with a very recent project of ours, so it's a troubled situation," said Lydia Kennard, the executive director.

In summer 2004, airport officials took the rare legal step of threatening to remove the company from a $34-million Van Nuys park-and-ride expansion project, saying Tutor-Saliba had failed to fix construction defects. The project, which includes a five-story garage, opened late last year — several months behind schedule.

Airport staff said they obtained contradictory information about Tutor-Saliba's performance on a UCLA hospital and a new high school in Arleta that left them unable to determine who was at fault for problems.

Ronald Tutor, the company's president, said delays at the hospital and the school were largely the result of major changes in the plans made by project managers. He blamed the work-quality issues on subcontractors.

The airport staff drafted a two-page summary of Tutor-Saliba's record after a four-month review that produced an 8-inch stack of documents, including performance reviews and inspection reports.

Airport officials say they have concerns about awarding the contract to Tutor-Saliba, but believe the commission has little choice. The city is required under federal law to accept the low bid because it is using federal money, in part, to pay for the runway. And it risks losing those grants if it delays the project, airport staff cautioned in a report to commissioners.

If the city puts the project back out to bid, the airport staff said unpredictable concrete and fuel costs could cause its price tag to soar.

Airport officials also say if the agency rebids the project, it is likely to get proposals from the same firms. The only other bidder was Omaha-based Kiewit Corp., whose offer was $41 million higher than Tutor-Saliba's.

Some of the seven airport commissioners, who are scheduled to vote Monday on the contract, expressed concerns about hiring Tutor-Saliba.

"We've had firsthand experience that was less than satisfactory, and we are aware of these other issues," said Alan Rothenberg, the commission's president.

Valeria Velasco, the commission's vice president, said: "I have huge concerns about awarding another contract to someone who hasn't done a good job for us in the past."

The project, which will cost $328 million including all contracts, will require workers to move a 11,096-foot-long runway 55 feet closer to El Segundo, build a taxiway between the two parallel runways and shore up the Sepulveda Boulevard tunnel under the runways so the massive 555-seat Airbus A380 can land on them.

Workers must remove the old runway and install 600,000 square yards of 19-inch thick concrete — enough to build a two-lane road more than 40 miles long.

The project, which is scheduled to begin early next year, is supposed to be completed in 26 months and airport officials say that it will not cause flight delays.

When the Airport Commission voted to hire Tutor-Saliba to expand the Van Nuys FlyAway park-and-ride in 2002, the agency staff promised to closely monitor the firm to prevent problems. But building inspectors found that concrete columns in the garage were not properly aligned and that the concrete used in several columns, some flooring and a ramp was substandard.

Tutor-Saliba, which dismissed the problems as "minor," subsequently demolished and rebuilt several concrete columns, reinforced some concrete beams and replaced substandard concrete. The airport agency and Tutor-Saliba are still arguing over who is responsible for the project's delays.

Other Tutor-Saliba projects have also fallen behind schedule.

The company started building a $64.4-million high school for 1,700 students at the old Gemco store site in Arleta in early 2003. It was supposed to be finished this year; officials now expect it to be completed next year.

"We think they have undermanned the project," said Jim Cowell, director of construction for the school district. "We have a target number of people we would expect to see on the job in order to make substantial progress, and they've been falling short on that."

Cowell conceded that much of the delay was caused by record rainfall last winter that forced officials to stop work on the building's interiors.

And Tutor said the school district caused the delays by continuing to make changes to the project, slowing it down.

"If anything, we're overmanned," he said.

At the $800-million hospital on UCLA's Westwood campus being built by Tutor-Saliba and a related firm, Perini Corp., state inspectors said the number of notices issued for failing to comply with plans is increasing.

Construction started in late 1999 and is more than a year behind schedule.

Tutor said there is a high number of such notices because UCLA has repeatedly changed its plans.

"They have written us over $100 million of extra work, that's a matter of fact in writing, and it's one of the reasons that this job has had such problems," he said.

During their investigation, the airport staff collected scores of reports that document problems including issues with beams, drywall, electrical work and a concrete foundation.

Tutor said most of the problems were with work completed by 27 subcontractors. "That's not to infer that there's nothing wrong with them making mistakes," he said.

Airport staff also collected information that put Tutor-Saliba's work in a positive light.

The firm "delivered each and every project at the Port of L.A. on time, under budget and I would not hesitate to hire them again…. NO QUESTION ABOUT IT," responded Bruce Seaton, interim executive director for the Port of Los Angeles.

Engineers at the Department of Public Works also told airport staff that they would work with the company again.

Officials at the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority, who did not respond to queries from the airport staff but talked with The Times, had similar comments about the firm's work on a 10-mile section of the railroad that links the port to rail yards.

"We were extremely pleased with the quality of work and particularly the schedule of completion — they finished it on time," said John Doherty, chief executive of the authority.

Tutor-Saliba's $782-million contract required building an open concrete trench with 30 bridges spanning it between the 91 Freeway and downtown Los Angeles.

Airport officials and Tutor agreed that the LAX runway is similar to the Alameda Corridor — an uncomplicated project from a construction standpoint for which the firm would do most of the work rather than hire subcontractors.

Tutor said that would give his company more control over the schedule and job performance.

"When they dedicated the Alameda Corridor, even our enemies in the political arena admitted it was one of the most successful projects ever," Tutor said. "It was one of the biggest projects ever in Los Angeles."

[urbanflyer]

just start pouring concrete already.

[RAlossi]

^ Yeah. Let's just hope we aren't ripping up that same concrete a year from now because it was done incorrectly.

[Wright Concept]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-palmdale21dec21,1,5760316.story?coll=la-headlines-california

Sole Carrier at Palmdale to Quit
Citing a lack of interest, Scenic plans to end flights to the Las Vegas area in March. L.A.'s airport agency hopes to attract new airlines.
By Jennifer Oldham
Times Staff Writer

December 21, 2005

The city's plans to kick-start a regional airport system to ease congestion at Los Angeles International Airport faltered this week when the only carrier at Palmdale Regional Airport decided to end the service in March.

Scenic Airlines, which launched flights from the airport to the Las Vegas area nearly a year ago, lost money even after airport officials provided free rent and spent $75,000 to market its service. The city of Palmdale also bought $20,000 worth of tickets for its employees and residents.

Airport officials had hoped that Scenic would succeed at Palmdale and prove to other airlines that the growing Antelope Valley could support air service.

The airport is also considered a crucial part of a push by Los Angeles to spread flights among other Southern California airports as the number of air passengers in the region is expected to double by 2030.

"We're disappointed," said Paul Haney, a spokesman for the city's airport agency. "We will intensify marketing efforts and explore new ways to make the business case for airlines to schedule flights at Palmdale."

The news follows an announcement a few weeks ago that Los Angeles would shelve plans to modernize LAX and work to develop incentives for airlines to take flights elsewhere.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has said that the Southland must develop a regional system so LAX can be held at 78 million annual passengers — the number of travelers at which roads around the already taxed airport are expected to become gridlocked.

Scenic Airlines filed papers with the federal Department of Transportation this week stating that it plans to cancel service by March 14.

As of Tuesday, the carrier still had not officially informed the Los Angeles airport agency of its plans.

The agency operates LAX and the Palmdale airport, as well as Ontario International Airport and Van Nuys Airport.

"The market isn't responding as we hoped, and therefore we need to exit Palmdale," said Mitzi Daines, vice president of marketing and business development for Scenic, adding that passengers can buy tickets to fly from Palmdale through March 14.

Aviation experts said that Scenic's small planes, higher fares and infrequent service doomed the Vegas route.

Scenic carried 4,352 round-trip passengers in the first 10 months of 2005 from Palmdale to North Las Vegas Airport.

In contrast, about 3,900 travelers fly round-trip from LAX to McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas every day.

Tiny Palmdale Regional Airport is located about 70 miles north of downtown Los Angeles. The facility, which has a 9,000-square-foot terminal and 17,750 acres of undeveloped land, is built to handle 300,000 passengers a year, but has had spotty service since it opened in 1971.

About 48,500 travelers flew into or out of Palmdale in its peak year, 1990. The number dropped to fewer than 19,400 by 1997. The last commercial carrier pulled out in 1998, citing lack of interest in its service.

The Southern California Assn. of Governments projects that the facility could be developed to handle up to 12.8 million passengers annually by 2030.

But airport officials have disputed this, saying they expect it to serve, at most, 2 million travelers annually in the coming decades.

Representatives for Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich said Tuesday that they planned to contact executives at Scenic and attempt to persuade the small airline to stay.

But they also said that the 38-year-old regional carrier, which is known for its sightseeing operations over the Grand Canyon, isn't the ideal service for Palmdale. The airline also provides regional jet service from North Las Vegas Airport to facilities in Nevada and California.

"The success or failure of Scenic Airlines is no way indicative of the feasibility of Palmdale Airport," said Tony Bell, a spokesman for Antonovich, whose district includes Palmdale.

Bell and Haney, the city's airport agency spokesman, said that they plan to focus on enticing low-fare carriers, such as Southwest Airlines, to provide service from Palmdale to other hubs in the West.

"We continue to believe that the Antelope Valley is a growing and attractive market for airline service," Haney said. "It plays a crucial role in the regional solution to accommodating growing demand for air service in Southern California."

But some city officials said it was premature to try to attract new service to Palmdale, saying the airport needed better transit and roads to attract passengers, as well as more marketing support to woo airlines.

"This is a symptom of the past, not of the future," said Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, whose district includes LAX and who is working to find a way to distribute flights around the region.

"We need to do more with Palmdale to make it more attractive."

[LosAngelesBeauty]

Ok will someone please conjecture the ambiguous fate of LAX? I was excited about the modernization plans and haven't been following up as I should!

What exactly does the revamping of Tom Bradley terminal entail? Who are the architects involved?

And how will the Green Line be incorporated into LAX in the future? Will there still be some kind of people mover system with a centralized pick-up station at the new Green Line LAX drop off?

[LongBeachUrbanist]

Despite mixed reviews, low bidder Tutor-Saliba will probably be hired to revamp the southern runway or the city could lose federal grants.

Great. Tutor-Saliba, the people who brought us Red Line sinkholes and fraudulent cost overruns, whose wonderful work brought us legislation to end subway construction in L.A. Let's see what they can do for LAX.

:brickwall:

[RAlossi]

I'm always confused about the term "people mover." To me that sounds like a moving sidewalk. Can anyone clarify?

[Wright Concept]

Ok will someone please conjecture the ambiguous fate of LAX? I was excited about the modernization plans and haven't been following up as I should!

What exactly does the revamping of Tom Bradley terminal entail? Who are the architects involved?

And how will the Green Line be incorporated into LAX in the future? Will there still be some kind of people mover system with a centralized pick-up station at the new Green Line LAX drop off?

TMK (To my knowledge)

The folks bitching about the plan and the City of LA "came to agreement" in other words, they're happy AV is mayor and they're starting from scratch in terms of the large scale modernization. What they are definetely doing is preparing the Airport for the Large 1,000,000+ at takeoff Airbus Jet. The work will include, Wider and Stronger runways most of which will be in the International Terminals. Wider and large gates and speedier baggage conveyer system to load luggage to plans with 500+ passengers. But items such as the people mover(RAlossi, People Mover in this case is an Airport Shuttle Trains System) are on hold until they revamp the new plan so that they can merge things together.

My gripe with this is all they needed to do like others had done with Riordan's old plan was add an Addendum. Which keeps the original approvals and just update the words to reflect current conditions. Like I said during the whole mayoral election this is AV's Catch 22, Damned if he did, Damned if he doesn't.

[ronson]

I heard somewhere they're thinking about a world renouned architect for this one. How about a Sir Norman or a Renzo? :)

[Wright Concept]

Supervisors back perks to lure airlines away from LAX
By Alison Shackelford Hewitt
Copley News Service

The county Board of Supervisors officially recommended Tuesday that the city of Los Angeles and its airport agency create incentives to encourage air carriers to fly out of airports other than LAX.

The motion by Supervisor Mike Antonovich aims to reduce congestion at Los Angeles International Airport and on neighboring freeways while also encouraging Los Angeles World Airports to take advantage of the region's other, underused airports, Antonovich said.

"I would like to see this begin yesterday, not tomorrow, because the needs are today," he said. "We could reduce congestion on the freeways and in the airspace. We need this for safety reasons and environmental concerns."

Last week the county joined the cities of El Segundo, Inglewood and Culver City, and other plaintiffs in agreeing to settle a lawsuit that opposed the city of Los Angeles' planned $11 billion modernization of LAX. Tuesday's motion is an effort to start over fresh, said Lori Glasgow, Antonovich's airport deputy.

"We want LAWA to know that we're saying, 'We really want to work together with you on this issue,' " Glasgow said.

Antonovich's motion recommends incentives that have been used at other airports across the country, Glasgow explained. For instance, LAWA could reduce the taxes and fees paid by airlines for gas, parking, rent and landing fees at Ontario, Van Nuys and Palmdale airports, she said.

Offering a guaranteed number of flights out of outlying airports, and subsidizing the cost of the flights if there were not enough passengers, could also give air carriers the needed stability to move into a different airport, she said.

Still other incentives could include a free shuttle from the Van Nuys park-and-ride to the Palmdale Airport, or subsidizing the cost of security officers to operate metal detectors at airports other than LAX, the motion suggested. Helping to pay for security or cargo improvements at outlying airports could also help, the motion said.

LAWA spokeswoman Nancy Castles said she hopes these issues and others will be aired at a regional forum that will take place as part of the recent accord reached on LAX modernization.

The Los Angeles City Council is scheduled to consider a final settlement with the county and other plaintiffs over the LAX plan at its meeting today. Approval would pave the way for a meeting between representatives of LAWA, several Southern California counties, regional airport operators and other agencies, Castles said.

"This will be an ideal forum to consider the recommendations cited in today's Board of Supervisors resolution," Castles said.

Palmdale Airport is the least used of LAWA's four airports. Although it has the capability to be a fully functional airport, it does not have any flights, Glasgow said.


One carrier, Scenic, used the airport as a base in 2005 but ceased operations Friday -- despite substantial financial incentives from LAWA -- after passenger levels dwindled to only four or five passengers per flight, Castles said.

[Wright Concept]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lax19jan19,0,21738.story?

From the Los Angeles Times
City Grounds Plan for LAX
Council OKs settlement that includes dropping of lawsuits by affected communities. Officials will begin work on new modernization ideas.
By Jennifer Oldham
Times Staff Writer

January 19, 2006

Paving the way for the city to draft a new plan to modernize Los Angeles International Airport, the City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved an agreement to shelve an $11-billion overhaul in exchange for airport-area communities dropping lawsuits challenging the plan.

The city's airport agency will start its third attempt in 11 years to devise a palatable proposal to upgrade the 77-year-old facility as soon as the litigation is dropped in state and federal court. To begin work on a new plan, airport officials will meet with residents and airlines to come up with ways to improve security at LAX and update its terminals. The process will allow Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who voted against former Mayor James K. Hahn's controversial LAX plan in 2004, to craft his own airport update.

"This is a rational community-sensitive plan that will allow for sensible improvements to be made to LAX," Villaraigosa said in a statement.

The new plan is expected to do away with the most despised elements of Hahn's blueprint, such as building a passenger check-in center near the San Diego Freeway and demolishing Terminals 1, 2 and 3 and parking garages in the central terminal area.

The proposal will probably include a consolidated rental car center, a new terminal on the airport's western edge and new gates to park large aircraft, including the Airbus A380, at the Tom Bradley International Terminal.

The agreement also allows the Los Angeles airport agency to start construction on the southernmost runway at LAX without worrying that a judge will order work to stop. The runway — expected to be closed from April through December — will be moved 55 feet closer to El Segundo. A taxiway will be installed between two runways to try to reduce close calls between aircraft.

All other parties to the deal, including Inglewood, El Segundo, Culver City, Los Angeles County and the Alliance for a Regional Solution to Airport Congestion, a residents group, have approved the settlement.

Those entities sued the city of Los Angeles last year after the council approved Hahn's plan, which used environmental studies drafted for a controversial expansion proposal crafted under former Mayor Richard Riordan.

Residents alleged in state and federal lawsuits that Hahn's plan understated impacts on noise, air pollution and traffic.

But Villaraigosa and Lydia Kennard, director of the city's airport agency, brought the parties together and worked for months to reach an agreement.

As part of the settlement, the airport agency agreed to limit the number of gates where airplanes park at LAX to 163.

Airport officials also promised to provide $266 million over 10 years to Inglewood, El Segundo and Los Angeles County to soundproof homes, provide job training, find ways to lessen traffic, and remove the abandoned streets in the sand dunes on the airport's western edge.

The agency will also form a five-county working group to discuss how to spread air traffic among the region's airports.

"Contrary to the paradigm of an airport proprietor, the thinking here is that it actually makes a tremendous amount of sense to cooperate … with your neighbors, and, in this case, the region as a whole," said Kelly McDowell, the mayor of El Segundo.

[Wright Concept]

http://www.dailybreeze.com/opinion/articles/2216486.html
DAILY BREEZE
Rail lines would spread air traffic

This is regarding "Supervisors back perks to lure carriers to smaller airports" on Wednesday. Though I appreciate the county supervisors' pragmatic approach in dealing with regionalizing airport traffic, there are three fundamentals that will make these proposed perks for Palmdale seem insignificant for cash-strapped, nearly bankrupt airlines, and they are location, location, location.

Los Angeles International Airport is within a short distance to regional job centers in the county and in close proximity to heavily visited beaches, media centers and Hollywood, where visitors flock. One way to fix this is to have the city of Los Angeles and county work together to fund studies for rail lines parallel to or on the 405 Freeway from the San Fernando Valley to LAX, the Crenshaw-Hollywood Corridor and abandoned Harbor Subdivision Railroad between the South Bay and Los Angeles so that riders won't need to drive into LAX.

For Palmdale or Ontario to even make a dent in regional air traffic, the pragmatic approach would be to build Metrolink stops right on the Palmdale and Ontario airport terminal areas. The existing heavily utilized Antelope Valley and San Bernardino lines pass within these airports' terminal areas and can operate service once an hour, like many other cities in the world such as London, Paris and Hong Kong do for their regional airport traffic. Then residents and travelers can be a short distance away from all of what Los Angeles has to offer.

-- JERARD WRIGHT
Los Angeles

[Wright Concept]

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-me-superjumbo18jan18,0,4604011.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage

From the Los Angeles Times
S.F. Airport Set for the Big One
The huge Airbus A380 will pull up to a gleaming terminal next year. In contrast, LAX plans to alter two gates for the double-decker.

By Jennifer Oldham
Times Staff Writer

January 18, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO — With ample seating in its spacious international terminal and six gates equipped for doubledecker jets, not to mention a fine selection of restaurants, this city's airport is ready for the massive 555-seat A380 airliner.

LAX has none of the above.

While Southern California officials dickered during the last decade about how to modernize Los Angeles International Airport, San Francisco built a gleaming $1-billion international terminal that was specifically designed to accommodate the new Airbus super-jumbo jet. The world's largest passenger plane is expected to start service to the West Coast in spring 2007.

The stark contrast between San Francisco International Airport and LAX — which plans to modify two gates for the double-decker plane at the already cramped Tom Bradley International Terminal — has led to speculation that San Francisco will woo A380 flights away from LAX.

"If airlines feel like they are not going to be able to be accommodated, then they'll start looking at other airports," said Allan McArtor, chairman of Airbus North America. McArtor met last week with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and airport officials to urge them to move ahead with plans to modernize LAX so it will retain its status as the gateway to the Pacific Rim.

"It's no secret that San Francisco is delighted to entertain any of these carriers," McArtor said. "Once they move there and get the maintenance and the ticket counters and ground handling, it's very difficult to get that route back."

San Francisco formed a marketing division several years ago to sell its new terminal to carriers and has produced colorful promotional materials touting the airport's readiness for the super-jumbo jet.

Los Angeles City Council members were arguing, meanwhile, about whether the Bradley terminal needed new gates to handle the plane.

"We would love to be the first airport to accommodate the A380," said John Martin, San Francisco International's director. "Physically, given the size of San Francisco versus the size of other cities in the U.S., we wouldn't necessarily be first on the list, but perhaps because of the readiness of our facility we can be."

LAX is the nation's No. 1 gateway for Asian travelers and is likely to remain so, even if SFO steals some flights. The world's fifth-busiest airport, LAX served more than twice as many international passengers in the first nine months of 2005 as SFO.

The Los Angeles airport agency is confident that efforts underway to reconfigure gates for the A380 will be finished in time for the jet's arrival.

"LAX is ready today to accept the A380 — there is no question about that," said Lydia Kennard, executive director of the agency, Los Angeles World Airports. "We intend to have the improvements done. We think we will compete very, very well with San Francisco."

But the Los Angeles economy could suffer, aviation officials warn, if the needed construction becomes snarled in delays or the airport is unable to handle the volume of A380 flights with its two retrofitted gates.

"We've seen a couple carriers already decide to move some early A380 routes to San Francisco because of lack of confidence that LAX can handle an A380," McArtor said.

Sixteen carriers have purchased 159 of the super-jumbo jets from Airbus, a European consortium based in Toulouse, France. Some airlines, including Qantas Airways, Singapore Airlines, Virgin Atlantic Airways, Lufthansa, Air France and Korean Air, have said they will fly the behemoth aircraft to the United States.

On the West Coast, only the Los Angeles and San Francisco airports have plans to handle the plane.

"It's not our inherent right to get those aircraft," said Frank Clark, executive director of the nonprofit organization that represents airlines operating out of the Bradley terminal. "The carriers have invested too much in that aircraft to have the perception of the aircraft be eroded by poor service because our airport isn't ready."

Several other U.S. airports are updating their airfields and terminals to serve the A380, which will hold at least 140 more passengers than the Boeing 747. Besides LAX and SFO, they include New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, Dallas-Fort Worth International and airports in Miami and Orlando. LAX expects to spend $65.5 million on A380 upgrades.

At these airports, taxiway and runway intersections need to be widened so the jet's 261-foot wingspan — the length of three blue whales stretched out head to tail — doesn't take out airfield lights when a pilot turns.

Tunnels, such as the portion of Sepulveda Boulevard that runs beneath LAX runways, need to be reinforced to handle the aircraft, which could be as heavy as 37 Metropolitan Transportation Authority buses, or 560 tons.

The jet also requires special gates with two loading bridges — one to reach the upper deck and one for the lower.

After years of discussion about how it should accommodate the A380 at LAX, the city recently started a few improvements, including adding asphalt to airfield intersections and upgrading the two Bradley gates. One gate, where construction began recently, is expected to be completed by midsummer and the other by spring 2007. The modifications are expected to cost $16 million.

At 1 million square feet, the 22-year-old Bradley is less than half the size of San Francisco's international terminal. It is also infamous for its dingy interiors, winding lines and uninspired restaurants. Later this year, airport officials hope to begin a $400-million face-lift.

By contrast, San Francisco's cavernous 5-year-old international terminal has floor-to-ceiling windows, an aviation museum and cherrywood paneling and is easily able to seat 555 passengers as they wait to board. It has wireless Internet access, shower facilities, a direct connection to the Bay Area Rapid Transit system and satellites of Bay Area restaurants.

At LAX, the airport agency is also preparing to rebuild the southernmost runway, a project that officials say is not necessary for the A380 but that could stymie the plane's arrival if it isn't finished by the time the first jet is set to begin service here. The runway is scheduled to be closed from April 25 through Dec. 22.

If the runway, the widest of the four at LAX, is closed when the first A380 arrives, the plane will have to use other runways closer to the terminals, forcing pilots to travel more slowly on the ground and possibly limiting the plane's takeoff weight.

As an incentive to expedite these improvements, McArtor told Los Angeles officials last week that he would bring the first test flight of the A380 in the U.S. to LAX in August, if the airport has finished modifying a gate.

Several carriers have announced that they will fly the A380 into and out of LAX, which is eventually expected to handle more A380 operations than any other U.S. airport. McArtor expects LAX to host 10 A380 flights a day by 2010.

But one carrier, Virgin Atlantic, has postponed its A380 service to LAX until early 2008 in part because it is concerned that the airport won't be ready.

Recently, Villaraigosa has sought to ease such worries, telling officials from Airbus and airlines that preparing to accommodate the A380 is a high priority.

"We're being assured by the appropriate authorities that the airport will be ready on time," said Wally Mariani, a senior executive vice president at Qantas. "There are some concerns in the back of our minds."

Qantas, the largest international carrier of passengers at LAX, hopes to be the first airline to bring the A380 here, in spring 2007.

Airline representatives are also worried about the airport's plans to park the craft at remote gates on LAX's western edge if the two A380 gates at the Bradley terminal are occupied. From there, passengers would have to be bused about 1.5 miles to the terminal. The city is buying new buses with a capacity of about 150 travelers.

Several carriers said that if they had to park their A380s, with their first-class lounges and upper-crust amenities, at those sterile, distant gates after a long overseas flight, they would reconsider bringing the aircraft to LAX.

"That kind of operation would be completely inconsistent with the level of service that we strive to provide our customers," said James Boyd, a spokesman for Singapore Airlines, which has not said where it will land the A380 in the U.S.

Armin Catrina, Lufthansa's general manager for operations for North and South America, said his airline, which intends to fly the A380 to LAX in 2008, would reconsider those plans if the planes had to park at the inconvenient gates. "That would be a problem for us," he said.

LAX officials say they are working on improving gates at other terminals so carriers will not be forced to use the remote gates.

"We will be able to provide excellent passenger service," Kennard said.

In addition to a reconfigured gate on each end of the Bradley terminal, airport officials want to build new gates on the back of the facility for the A380 and other new large aircraft, such as Boeing's 787 Dreamliner, which will seat up to 330. A proposal to construct those gates died last year when the city shelved its $11-billion plan to modernize LAX. Officials hope to revive it this year.

In the race to get the first A380 service in the U.S., however, Los Angeles airport officials say LAX does have some advantages that SFO lacks.

"What we have over San Francisco is the market. We just have to push to get our facilities in place," said Michael DiGirolamo, a deputy executive director at the city airport agency.

In another advantage for Los Angeles, airlines pay about $6.50 for every passenger who boards a plane at LAX, compared with $15.75 in San Francisco — a major consideration for the cash-strapped industry.

LAX also has generally good weather and fewer delays.

San Francisco has stubborn fog that can cause delays because the airport's closely spaced, parallel runways cannot be fully used in bad weather.

In addition, LAX has a complicated web of connecting flights that would be difficult to replicate at SFO.

But if the airlines are motivated to move their flights, officials said, new connections can be created by offering incentives to partner airlines.

"They thought the movie business would be here forever," McArtor, the Airbus executive, said on a recent visit to Los Angeles. Referring to filming lured away by other states and nations, he added, "But they created an environment that made movie production go somewhere else, and it's not likely to ever come back."

[Wright Concept]

=============================================================
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/...omment-letters

From the Los Angeles Times
LETTERS
San Francisco airport can have jumbo jet

January 20, 2006

So LAX may yield to San Francisco International Airport for bragging rights to the Airbus super-duper jumbo jet's landings and takeoffs (Jan. 18). Good riddance.

LAX is the camel that puts its nose under the tent, by degrees forcing out the hapless herder. For decades, hundreds of thousands of long-suffering South Bay residents have endured the incessant environmental, noise and vehicular traffic effects of LAX's relentless "bigger at any cost" policies.

TOM HERMAN

Manhattan Beach

•



The article suggests that there is a crisis looming if LAX doesn't quickly prepare for the arrival of the massive, double-decker, 555-seat Airbus A380. This, of course, means that I may never have to wait with 554 other people in a line for check-in, one or more lines for security and a line each for immigration and customs (not to mention a line for food, because few airlines serve meals anymore).

Now this is bad because …?

JOHN NACHREINER

Redondo Beach

[colemonkee]

^ They should have included their occupations:

TOM HERMAN, NIMBY
Manhattan Beach

JOHN NACHREINER, Whiney bitch
Redondo Beach

[urban_encounter]

I'm always confused about the term "people mover." To me that sounds like a moving sidewalk. Can anyone clarify?


Automated People movers are a small train systems or monorail systems. (usually automated)

Here's a link to give you an idea of the APM

http://www.bombardier.com/index.jsp?id=1_0&lang=en&file=/en/1_0/1_2/1_2_2_1_3.jsp

[bobcat]

Los Angeles Airport to Expand FlyAway Bus System to Union Station to Increase Convenience, Ease Traffic Congestion

LOS ANGELES, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- Jan 23, 2006 -- The Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners today approved a three-year agreement with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to establish direct-to-airport bus service from Union Station in downtown Los Angeles to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). The action permits Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) to start airport bus service in mid-March and is part of LAWA's ground transportation initiatives to expand its FlyAway bus system in order to improve passenger convenience and reduce traffic congestion.

Under a Right of Entry and Hold Harmless Agreement, the MTA would allow LAWA to use Union Station's Patsaouras Transit Plaza, provide parking for 500 vehicles at the Gateway Parking Garage, and allow the operation of an information and ticket sale kiosk. Unlike public buses, FlyAway buses are designed with luggage bays. Porter service would be available to riders.

The buses are expected to depart Union Station on a regular schedule to travel non-stop to the LAX Central Terminal Area to drop-off and pick up passengers in front of each of the airport's nine airline terminals. Airport officials said buses will run in both directions every 30 minutes between the hours of 5 a.m. and 1 a.m. and every hour from 1 a.m. and 5 a.m.

Airport officials said the non-stop transportation service is designed to reduce vehicle traffic congestion and vehicle emissions in the region by encouraging high-occupancy vehicle ridership. Expansion of the bus service is a requirement of the LAX Master Plan Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Program and one of the conditions of the recent settlement of lawsuits filed against the LAX Master Plan.

As an inter-modal transit center, Union Station is unique and provides a needed link to LAX for a large population of transit ridership that would not otherwise be available if the FlyAway site were located elsewhere. Union Station provides direct access to the Red and Gold Metro Rail Lines, Metrolink, Amtrak, DASH, and local and regional buses.

LAWA began operating the FlyAway service from Van Nuys Airport in 1975, and it has served over 18 million riders and saved 396 million vehicle miles traveled since its inception. The newest location is part of a plan that would add eight new locations around Southern California to the FlyAway system by 2015. Also for the future, LAWA plans to add FlyAway service to its other commercial facilities at Ontario International and Palmdale Regional Airports.

Fares for the Union Station-to-LAX route are expected to match those for the Van Nuys FlyAway. The VNY FlyAway currently charges $6 for adult round-trip fares or $3.50 one way. Fares for children ages 2 to 12 years are currently $1.75 each way, and free for children under 2 years. The parking rate at Union Station will be $6 per day. At the Van Nuys FlyAway, parking is $4 per day.

The agreement is scheduled for consideration by the MTA Board of Directors Jan. 26.

[ferneynism2]

The airport bus will be in Downtown in about 15-20 minutes. It will take 105 East (Carpool) then jump on the 110 (Carpool). I wonder what type of fleet their going to use?

[sbocguy]

^Great news, especially the part about future expansion of this service... this sounds like an excellent way to provide direct access between LAX and other transit hubs in the region, at the very least as a stopgap until a Green Line and/or Metrolink extension can be constructed. It should be expanded, where possible, to other major destinations, like all the major colleges and office areas, as well as to as many airports as possible. Forget the check-in and baggage check facilities like at Van Nuys; just concentrate on providing access. I flew into London Heathrow back in March, and they've got fast, frequent, comfortable and late-running bus service going all over the place, in addition to the rail connections... there's no need to wait for rail at LAX or other SoCal airports in order to get the same type of connectivity.

[Wright Concept]

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2006-02-06-lax-runways_x.htm
LAX runway safety project to get $100 million from feds

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A runway safety project at Los Angeles International Airport is of critical importance and likely will receive more than $100 million in federal funding, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said.

The airport has had one of the worst runway safety problems in the nation for several years. The $250 million project will improve safety on the airfield's south side, where most of the close calls between aircraft have occurred.

"Fixing the runway will make this a safer airport," Mineta said Thursday following a tour of the airfield. "There are too many reports of aircraft coming too close together."

Mineta announced that the airport will receive an additional $29.5 million in federal funds for the project, bringing the total federal contribution so far to $68.3 million.

Nearly 62 million travelers used Los Angeles International last year, making it the world's fifth busiest airport in terms of passengers served, said airport spokesman Paul Haney. The airport has had the third highest rate of runway safety violations in the nation since 1999, according to Federal Aviation Administration statistics.

Officials have long recognized the need for renovating the southern runway complex but work never began because a series of airport improvement plans ran into political trouble and legal challenges.

The pending project was allowed to proceed under a lawsuit settlement that the city's airport agency reached with several nearby cities and community groups.

The work will involve building a new taxiway between the two parallel runways on the airport's south side and moving one of the 11,000-foot runways in the process.

Officials say the reconfiguration will eliminate the problem of arriving aircraft shooting straight across the inner runway and getting in the way of planes that are taking off.

Work is expected to begin in July and be completed in late 2007, airport officials said.

The southernmost runway will be closed part of that time. Officials said, however, that the airport will operate efficiently using the other runway on the south side and two other runways on the north side of the airport.

Mineta also announced that the federal government will provide $27 million to help soundproof more than 500 homes near the airport.

[Wright Concept]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-runway23feb23,1,7875836.story?coll=la-headlines-california

Error Puts 3 Planes on Same Path at LAX
An arriving jet passes within 275 feet of one flight as another aircraft crosses the runway.
By Amanda Covarrubias
Times Staff Writer

February 23, 2006

Two planes flew dangerously close to each other at Los Angeles International Airport on Friday after an air traffic controller directed three aircraft to use the same runway at the same time, officials said Wednesday.

Federal aviation officials will investigate the incident, and then the FAA will classify it as to severity. Officials attributed the incident to human error on the part of the controller.

"We're human beings and we do make mistakes," said Bob Marks, vice president for the regional office of the National Air Traffic Controllers Assn., who added that the incident involved a veteran controller who is set to retire this year.

The incident was eerily similar to a near crash at the airport in August 2004 and the February 1991 runway collision that killed 35 people. It also comes at a time when the airport is trying to reduce the number of "runway incursions."

Friday's incident began a few minutes before 11:30 p.m. when a Southwest Airlines jet that was about to land on the airport's northernmost runway was diverted by an air traffic controller to a nearby runway.

Moments later, the controller told a regional SkyWest plane that it could cross the same runway as it taxied to the terminal. He also told an arriving Air Canada jet that it could cross the far end of the runway in the Southwest flight's path.

The SkyWest aircraft was making its way toward the runway and stopped short when its pilot saw the Southwest jet approaching. The Southwest aircraft flew within about 275 feet of the SkyWest plane, according to the initial investigative report, FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said.

As the Southwest jet touched down, the Air Canada plane crossed its path at the far end of the runway on its way to the terminal. Seeing the Air Canada plane, the Southwest pilot slowed and turned onto a taxiway, never getting closer than 5,600 feet to the other aircraft, Brown said.

The FAA has not determined what led the controller to switch the Southwest aircraft to the other runway as it prepared to land.

But typically, Marks said, controllers make such decisions in order to use runways more efficiently.

The incident marked the first such near miss of 2006. Officials said it pointed to the need to rework the runway configurations at LAX, which has had one of the worst records for runway safety violations in the nation in recent years.

Last year, the airport had five near-miss incidents. It had seven in 2004, nine in 2003, six in 2002 and nine in 2001.

"We've worked very closely with the city to identify what we can do to improve runway safety at LAX," Brown said. "Our primary focus is on reducing all runway incursions. We take them all seriously because we see them as precursors to accidents, and our main goal is to prevent runway collisions."

Although the controllers' union has complained in the past that understaffing can lead overworked controllers to make more mistakes, Marks said staffing did not appear to be a contributing factor on Friday. He estimated that four controllers were on duty in the control tower, the usual number for that hour of the night.

To improve safety, LAX and FAA officials have for decades discussed moving the airport's southernmost runway 55 feet closer to El Segundo to make room for a center taxiway.

Arriving aircraft would use the new taxiway to reduce speed before crossing the inner runway on their way to the terminal.

The effort was delayed for years by a lawsuit from neighboring cities. But the suit was recently dropped, allowing LAX officials to push forward with a modernization plan.

Najmedin Meshkati, director of USC's aviation safety program, said the incident shows that plans to make physical improvements to the airport, such as reconfiguring the runways, may not be enough to improve its safety record. He said that in addition to the runway configuration, LAX officials need to consider visibility issues and using newer technology.

"I think it could help, but I think they are trying to fix a wrong with a quick fix," Meshkati said. "They are basically missing the boat. They need to look at all these contributing factors."

[Wright Concept]

Fast-forward to 2030: How will you get to the airport?
Regional planners describe a suburban network buoyed by high-speed railways. But a House panel raises red flag on the pricetag.By Doug Irving
DAILY BREEZE

An ambitious plan to break the region's reliance on Los Angeles International Airport will require billions of dollars in roadwork and rail lines, transportation officials told a congressional panel Monday.

That plan envisions a network of bustling airports scattered throughout the suburbs, each handling some of the air traffic that otherwise would smother LAX. It has won widespread support among both planners and politicians, but its full costs are still coming into view.

On Monday, regional planners acknowledged that the plan's success depends in large part on how quickly travelers can get to those other airports. They estimated that it could cost up to $18 billion to develop the kind of high-speed transportation needed to make those airports real alternatives to LAX.

Their comments came during a special meeting in Corona of the U.S. House Aviation Subcommittee. And the three congressmen who were there warned that federal funds for such a project will be difficult to find.

They agreed, though, that Los Angeles finds itself in a unique position. It knows its main airport will be overwhelmed by air traffic in the years to come -- and it has time to do something about it.

"Delays in the region will worsen over time," said Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., and the chairman of the subcommittee. "It's just inevitable. ... The crunch will be here sooner than we expect."

Planners say some 170 million passengers a year will be looking for flights into or out of the Los Angeles region by 2030. That's more than twice as many as today, and tens of millions more than LAX can handle alone.

The solution can be found in places such as Long Beach and Burbank, Palmdale and Ontario, according to the Southern California Association of Governments. Those smaller airports could assume a far greater share of the region's air traffic, the association says, but only after some major upgrades.

The regional association estimated in an earlier report that it would take nearly $6 billion to make the necessary improvements to terminals and runways at those airports. In some cases, its plan involves transforming sleepy, out-of-the-way airstrips into full-fledged international airports.

The trick has always been getting people to use those airports. Palmdale's small airport, for example, has tried to woo passenger carriers, only to have them give up in frustration when customers failed to appear.

Planners have long touted super-high-speed magnetic-levitation trains as a way to knit together the sprawling and gridlocked region. But Mark Pisano, executive director of the regional association, has backed away from specifics in recent months and now prescribes only a "high-speed system."

For the next decade, that might require nothing more elaborate than a fleet of airport buses slipping past traffic in the carpool lanes, Pisano told the congressional hearing. It could also involve extending a Metrolink line to Ontario airport and finally getting a light-rail line all the way to the LAX terminals.


But that won't do enough in the long term to shift demand away from LAX and toward those smaller airports, he said.

The region needs that high-speed link that would make it possible -- and sensible -- for a traveler in Orange County to catch a flight in Ontario, he said.

Such a transit network could zip past traffic jams and would serve far more than just air travelers, Pisano added.

Workday commuters could take it downtown; shippers could use it to rush goods across town.

The state "will be hard-pressed to keep up with ground-access needs" with roads and freeways alone, Caltrans Director Will Kempton told the subcommittee.

Pisano estimated that a regional web of high-speed transit and bus lines would cost $18 billion, maybe more, depending on what cities it ties together. He urged the congressmen to free up some aviation funds for ground-transportation systems.

After the meeting, he said $100 million in federal seed money could get the project moving. Tolls, ticket surcharges and fees on development or freight could also help cover at least some of the cost, he added.

The regional association is still working on its final estimates and on a business plan for how to pay for them.

But Rep. Ken Calvert, a Republican from Corona, said the alternative to making better use of the suburban airports is already becoming clear. He noted that he regularly drives from his Inland Empire district to LAX to catch flights back to Washington.

And with all the traffic of a fast-growing region, he said, "You can't get there."










Find this article at:
http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/articles/2497921.html

[J Church]

Gosh, I can think of a high-speed rail line that would cost a little more than half that, and would greatly reduce pressure on L.A.-area airports.

[LongBeachUrbanist]

The region needs that high-speed link that would make it possible -- and sensible -- for a traveler in Orange County to catch a flight in Ontario, he said.

Of course I am all for more transit options throughout So. Cal. But I don't necessarily think it makes sense for the goal to be a system to get someone from Orange Co. to Ontario airport. I think the goal should be to ensure that existing airports serve their local populations. So someone in O.C. would go to O.C.'s airport (John Wayne), someone in the SGV would use Ontario, someone in the Valley would use Palmdale, etc.

IOW, if we're strictly talking about regionalizing our airport system, I think a better solution is to upgrade the many regional airports, and then connect people to their closest airport via speedy rail lines.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Of course I am all for more transit options throughout So. Cal. But I don't necessarily think it makes sense for the goal to be a system to get someone from Orange Co. to Ontario airport. I think the goal should be to ensure that existing airports serve their local populations. So someone in O.C. would go to O.C.'s airport (John Wayne), someone in the SGV would use Ontario, someone in the Valley would use Palmdale, etc.

IOW, if we're strictly talking about regionalizing our airport system, I think a better solution is to upgrade the many regional airports, and then connect people to their closest airport via speedy rail lines.

I agree with what you say, but as an Orange County resident, John Wayne's only convenience for me is its closeness to my apartment. Most times, its simply too expensive to fly out of there. I drive up to Ontario and LAX a lot if I want cheaper flights.

[northbay420]

well, with $18 bil in improvements to pay for, i dont know if ANY of the airports will be affordable

[Wright Concept]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/los_angeles_metro/la-me-lopez26apr26,1,1419157.column?coll=la-commun-los_angeles_metro

From the Los Angeles Times
STEVE LOPEZ / POINTS WEST
LAX Needs Security, Not Soap
Steve Lopez
Points West

April 26, 2006

Not to sound ungrateful, but the news about plans to upgrade the landscaping and restrooms at LAX doesn't do much for me.

Yes, I know that travelers ranked Los Angeles International 19th out of 22 major airports, and I'm certainly not against clean commodes and a few more swaying palms. But if they're going to spend millions of dollars tinkering, I suggest they focus on a matter of greater importance than cosmetics.

Twice on recent flights out of LAX, I've been stuck in security lines that stretched outside of the building. That's nothing new, of course. But these lines were so long I had time to grow a beard, have a weenie roast and fire off an angry letter to the Transportation Security Administration, the underperforming stepchild of the Department of Homeland Security.

Cars and trucks drove past by the hundreds, meanwhile, and potentially, we were all sitting ducks. I spent 20 minutes outside on one occasion, then stepped inside to find an even longer line, and nearly missed my flight.

For the third straight year, the Rand Corp. warned in February that a luggage or car bomb attack could wipe out hordes of people jammed on sidewalks and in the check-in lobbies. Rand recommended that airlines and TSA add enough staff to move passengers along more quickly.

But the problem seems to be getting worse, and it turns out it isn't just my imagination. In fact, the city's airport agency has sent a letter to Homeland Security complaining about a sizable security staff shortage and warning of disastrous implications.

The "large crowds of people inside and outside the passenger terminals make LAX more vulnerable to a terrorist attack," said the missive from Lydia Kennard, executive director of Los Angeles World Airports, and Steven Holt, who represents the airlines at LAX.

"This is of great concern," Kennard continued, "since LAX has previously been a target for terrorism and is considered the No. 1 Al Qaeda target in the state and one of the top targets in the United States."

Local airport officials said the waiting time for travelers was slowly but steadily decreasing until March. That's when TSA dropped a contract with a company that did its national hiring and farmed out the duties to TSA regional directors. But the switch was made without enough time for the new operations to get off the ground. Among other things, the agency was forced to scramble for fingerprinting equipment, according to Kennard.

Nice work, TSA.

Some travel industry folks have been wondering if Michael Brown, who established his knucklehead credentials at FEMA, has taken over TSA.

Paul Haney, an LAX official, said the airport is down 200 TSA staffers from its allocation of 2,000 full-time-equivalent positions. That's 400 less than its allocation of a year ago and 700 down from the high in 2003. This follows the national pattern. Several times since the inception of TSA, Congress has simply decreed that the agency will have fewer employees nationwide. In case you're wondering, the number of passengers at LAX rose steadily as the TSA whacked employees.

Why not just hand out bull's-eye vests to passengers stuck on the pavement?

"It sure is damn stupid," U.S. Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) said of the shortage. She intends to make her feelings known to Homeland Security boss Michael Chertoff, she said, asking him to explain how a one-time terrorist target is supposed to ensure traveler safety with a shrinking TSA staff.

Jennifer Peppin, a Western states TSA spokeswoman, told me not to worry, which is always a sure sign of trouble ahead. Handing over the hiring chores and full control to local TSA directors makes more sense, she said, and the new operation at LAX will be up to speed soon.

Will it? At LAX, Haney isn't so sure, even though airport officials have done their best to get things moving. The airport turned over some nearby property to TSA for a hiring and training center that is just now getting set up, and it takes a few months to train recruits, Haney said. So LAX won't be up to full force before the travel volume gets crazy this summer.

Meanwhile, TSA loses 40 to 50 employees a month at LAX because of boredom, injury, relatively low pay ($11-$16 an hour), and other factors that may or may not include ticked-off travelers who don't like waiting in line for an hour to have Granny frisked for fingernail files and bobby pins.

At LAX, Kennard is recommending the temporary transfer of TSA security officers from overstaffed smaller airports. That sounds good. I've been through smaller airports where they don't seem to know what to do with themselves.

Here's another idea: Take any National Guard troops and other soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan without jobs and send them to the nearest airport. They'll still need security training, but maybe they can be sped through the background check.

When I told L.A. City Councilman Jack Weiss about the staffing shortage, he said he would call today for a report from the airport agency and an explanation from TSA.

"The lines that look like targets absolutely are," said Weiss, who noted that it doesn't take a genius to see the risk.

"We went to see my wife's family in Tucson two weeks ago and our trip started on the pavement" at LAX, he said. "You feel like a sitting duck because you are. But what is incredibly frustrating is: How many times does Rand have to shout this from the mountaintop?"


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reach the columnist at steve.lopez@latimes.com and read previous columns at http://www.latimes.com/lopez .

[Wright Concept]

While hiring more guards and ticket checkers are neccessary the problem still occurs that there is no room for the extra machines needed to reduce the lines. How come these guys not get that?

Also a car or truck bomb could wipe set off a chain reaction due to scrapnel. So staying inside isn't any safer. Like at that spot in the arrival level right next to terminal 1 which is so close to taxing planes could wipe out the airport and there are no check-in lines there.

[Wright Concept]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/los_angeles_metro/la-me-briefs3.5may03,1,6650491.story?coll=la-commun-los_angeles_metro

From the Los Angeles Times
IN BRIEF / LOS ANGELES COUNTY / LOS ANGELES
2 Jets Have Close Call on LAX Runway
From Times Staff and Wire Reports

May 3, 2006

Planes got too close to each other at Los Angeles International Airport last week for the third time this year, officials said.

The incident occurred Thursday after a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 landed. The plane crossed into a safety zone on a taxiway connecting the outer runway to the inner runway, where an American Airlines MD80 was cleared to take off.

Air traffic controllers canceled the American jet's takeoff clearance before the pilot released the brakes. The two planes were 9,000 feet apart.

[Wright Concept]

^Now if this isn't a reason to modernize the airport. I don't know what is.

[deehrler]

The two planes were 9,000 feet apart.

Por favor! Those planes were a mile and a half from one another. Even if the take-off plane had launched, he would have been well above the other.

I guess that if he had to abort there could have been a collision. In my hundreds of flights, I have never seen or been on an aborted take-off..

Sure it was an improper direction, but hardly one that sends shivers down my spine.

[BrianSac]

Expanding Ontario Airport dramatically and building a new LAX in the desert makes more sense to me. I hate NIMBYs too, but that airport should have never been built on Dockweiler Beach. Anyone agree with me?

[ferneynism2]

Some pix of LAX I took last week.....

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e124/fnee1901/SSC/LAX1.jpg

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e124/fnee1901/SSC/LAX2.jpg

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e124/fnee1901/SSC/LAX3.jpg

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e124/fnee1901/SSC/LAX4.jpg

[deehrler]

Expanding Ontario Airport dramatically and building a new LAX in the desert makes more sense to me. I hate NIMBYs too, but that airport should have never been built on Dockweiler Beach. Anyone agree with me?

When it was built, before WWII, who would have known it would be like it is today. It was far from the city then and beachfront property was cheap.

An airport in the desert would fail for being too far unless many arms are twisted to the point that maybe the LAX should be closed and sold off for its highest value. The proceeds would more than pay for it, plus a bullit train. Driving to Mohave is not something many would do....much less if LAX was still open. Putting restrictions on LAX will simply drive up fares making it an airport for the elite.

The same applies to San Diego.

[Wright Concept]

LA Weekly
Shooting Down Trains
Written by DAVID ZAHNISER

LAX director is no big fan of the Green Line. Standing before a room full of lobbyists, lawyers and airport contractors last week, the woman hired by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to run Los Angeles International Airport put her cards on the table regarding the Metro Green Line, the light-rail system that stops just shy of LAX.

In her usual no-nonsense fashion, Lydia Kennard bluntly warned her lunchtime audience that extending the Green Line to LAX could be a colossal waste of money. For one thing, she said, the project would cost at least a half billion dollars. For another, only one-third of 1 percent of the airport’s passengers use the Green Line.

“There are a lot of other, better things we can do with our money in terms of getting people to the airport,” she said.

The remarks, delivered at the Los Angeles Current Affairs Forum, defied a decade of conventional wisdom on L.A. transit, which long labeled a Green Line connection to the airport as a no-brainer. Yet Kennard had a point: Why would a passenger at Union Station bother taking the Red Line to the Blue Line to the Green Line, when the airport just started running a shuttle that runs to LAX from downtown Los Angeles in 35 minutes for only $3?

Villaraigosa scored a minor policy success this year with the start of the Union Station Flyaway, a bus the color of pastel-blue Easter eggs that runs every 30 minutes. Ridership has steadily increased since it opened in March, thanks in part to a $1.2 million media blitz that featured the mayor’s mug on television commercials. But is the bus so successful that it renders the need for a Green Line extension to LAX obsolete?

The Green Line opened in 1995 to much derision, receiving the nickname “train to nowhere” because it detours south just as it approaches the airport, forcing passengers to take a shuttle to LAX from the Green Line’s Aviation Boulevard station.

The Flyaway is expected to serve 225,000 passengers this year, triple the original projection. Roughly 80 percent of passengers who take the Green Line to LAX are airport employees, while nearly 90 percent of riders on the Flyaway are airport travelers. And Kennard clearly implied that the cheaper alternative is the Union Station Flyaway, which costs $3.5 million annually to operate and already serves three times as many airport travelers as the Green Line. In an era of scarce transit funding, the less glamorous bus could free up funds for other major infrastructure projects.



The only thing is, Villaraigosa and Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl campaigned last year on an extension of the Green Line into LAX. On the day Kennard gave her address, Rosendahl scrambled to ensure that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority included reviewing a Green Line link to LAX as part of a larger package of rail studies. The MTA also promised to review the likelihood of an entirely new light-rail line, which would run diagonally from Union Station to LAX through Inglewood.

Rosendahl sounded unconvinced by Kennard’s remarks, saying the Green Line extension is only the first link in a larger system that would connect the South Bay with the Westside. The councilman already envisions extensions of the Green Line north to Santa Monica and south to Hawthorne Boulevard in Redondo Beach, reducing congestion on the 405 freeway. “I’ve talked to a lot of different transit people out there, and there are a lot of different opinions on it,” he said. “But the opinion I’m going with is that [the extension] makes sense, until somebody proves to me that it doesn’t through a scientific, independent study.”

The most recent plan for LAX and rail would have extended the Green Line by only one-tenth of a mile. But because the route would have served only LAX, it would have been funded exclusively by Los Angeles World Airports, not the MTA, said Patrick Tomcheck, the airport’s senior transportation engineer. Former Mayor James Hahn’s LAX modernization plan — part of which was scrapped by Villaraigosa last year — would have sent the Green Line 500 feet west, terminating at a transfer station where passengers would have boarded a new people mover circulating within the airport.

If the Green Line moves deeper into the airport, the Federal Aviation Administration will likely require that it go underground or, at minimum, down a trench to make sure that its electrical wires don’t interfere with jets on the airport’s south runway, Tomcheck said. Tunneling would cost at least $250 million per mile. Furthermore, the FAA would prohibit the city from funding a project that delivers passengers somewhere other than the airport.

By securing an MTA study, the Green Line extension could have a greater chance of receiving funds from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s $37 billion infrastructure bond, Rosendahl said. Still, Kennard argued that the public needs an education on the pluses and minuses of pushing rail to the airport.

“Just because people think it’s stupid that the Green Line stops at Aviation doesn’t mean we should connect it [to LAX],” she said.


Last Updated ( Wednesday, 05 July 2006 )

[Art]

Jeezus this city is rife with stupidity, incompetence, and a total lack of foresight or purpose for the commom good. I just got an internship with a nonprofit and the founder was talking about how shocked she is about the "dog eat dog" culture in LA, which she noted is not as prevalent elsewhere in the US, and how so many people here would rather have projects fail if they do them no good or benefit.

And I must ask is Tomcheck an idiot, biased for alterior motives, or getting fed the wrong info? It is well known and discussed by EVERYONE with interest in this extension that a trench would be built that is 6-10 feet deep on an abandoned right-of-way, there would be no damned tunnel needed. It sounds like someone's grasping for straws to knock this valid concept, althought the flyaway bus's existence is also good reason to be skeptical right now for cost reasons.

[Wright Concept]

Art, he's got his information correct, chill Homie, Chill! (Laughs)

"If the Green Line moves deeper into the airport, the Federal Aviation Administration will likely require that it go underground or, at minimum, down a trench to make sure that its electrical wires don’t interfere with jets on the airport’s south runway, Tomcheck said. Tunneling would cost at least $250 million per mile. Furthermore, the FAA would prohibit the city from funding a project that delivers passengers somewhere other than the airport."

The same trench for the South Runway will be required if the route were to go up to Lincoln/Sepulveda and now the trench would be a subway tunnel to avoid the North Runways and this will still require a people mover access to make the Airport area more user friendly. Kenard the person Mayor Villaraigosa brought in is saying the same things in regard to the "tunnel"

This is one of my reasons why the Crenshaw Corridor project should be built with LAX expansion because you can allow for the spur to be built in the future AND connect it with an exisiting High demand corridor. So that it would serve more than the Airport.

[Damien]

I'll restate my idea for a Sepulveda station-less tunnel.

Just as the Green line turns down Nash the trains could run west down Maple OR (my preference) behind the buildings on the northern side of Maple down the abandoned ROW that is now been paved and used for parking. Take a look at the satellite maps to see what I'm talking about.

It would obviously begin from the current elevated track, and decend to street level (gated grade-separated) with a Sepulveda/Imperial station, which would actually be more accurately Sepulveda/Sycamore. It would then continue decending into a shallow cut-and-cover tunnel turning north up Sepulveda and elevate to an at-grade LAX station at 96th/Sepulveda. The tunnel would be cut-and-cover and have no stations, so it couldn't possibly cost the same as a $300 million dollar bored tunnel with stations.

I advocate this routing, also because I think any 405/Sepulveda line should continue down Sepulveda to Rosecrans instead of the Nash route that serves almost no one.

[Wright Concept]

LAX malfunctions raise safety questions
By GILLIAN FLACCUS, Associated Press Writer
Tue Aug 8, 10:35 AM ET



A computerized system that guides arriving planes onto a runway at Los Angeles International Airport failed, marking the second serious problem to disable the world's fifth-busiest airport in the past three weeks, officials said.

The latest malfunction on Monday caused flight delays across the nation.

Aviation experts said the equipment failures raise questions about the nation's aviation system, which is straining under passenger loads that have rebounded to their highest levels since Sept. 11, 2001. LAX, for example, averages 1,800 daily flights and will serve an estimated 18.7 million passengers this summer, 200,000 more than last year.

"The FAA's complete instrument system, as we know, is somewhat accident prone," said Jack Keady, an aviation consultant who has followed the problems at LAX. "We need to do more what-if thinking,"

Monday's malfunctioning equipment, called a localizer, acts as a beacon to guide arriving planes onto runways. It is most crucial when it is foggy or hazy. It was foggy at the airport on Monday.

The problem was compounded because one of the airport's four runways was closed for a major construction project. To compensate, one of the departure runways was handling both departures and arrivals — and it was that shared runway that had the problem.

The localizer failed shortly before 9 a.m. PDT, and reduced the number of landings — usually about one a minute — to 32 an hour, the Federal Aviation Administration said. Airport authorities responded by reversing the direction of the runways so that the faulty equipment was no longer needed, bringing the number of landings back to a normal level.

Flights were forced to circle the airport, and some planes were ordered to remain on the ground at other airports, officials said. Arriving flights were held up to 90 minutes. Departures were also delayed, and several flights were canceled.

Technicians were able to repair the system shortly after noon PDT. Officials were investigating the cause of the equipment's failure.

The airport was hit with a major power failure July 18 that backed up flights across parts of the western United States and Canada.

That outage happened when a vehicle crashed into a utility pole, causing a power fluctuation that prompted the air traffic control center's backup generator to turn on. About an hour later, that generator failed.

The failures prompted Sen. Barbara Boxer (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., to demand that the FAA investigate the landing system's failure.

Air traffic controllers said the localizer flickered off intermittently Saturday, but that each time it came back up after a few minutes. Technicians found nothing wrong with the beacon after the outages, said Diane Aceves, an air traffic controller and local president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said it took more than three hours to fix the system Monday because the technician, who works at several airports in the region, was not at LAX at the time.

___

Associated Press writer Oskar Garcia contributed to this report.

[urbanflyer]

Had the airport's other localizer beacon failed it would have meant no ILS (Instrument Landing System) availability for the entire airport. Until the fog cleared arrivals would have had to be diverted or otherwise cancelled. Talk about an unacceptable situation. It's shameful that this situation is permitted to continue in what is otherwise critical American infrastructure.

[Wright Concept]

http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/articles/3597981.html

Sen. Boxer is critical of recent LAX troubles
Senator wants investigation by the government into failures that set back flights. The FAA says is willing to update officials in the future.
By Doug Irving
Daily Breeze

U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer called Thursday for a federal investigation into a series of equipment failures that interrupted flights into Los Angeles International Airport this summer.

The request by Boxer came hours after technicians attempted to repair a malfunctioning landing beacon at the airport by replacing a faulty sensor. The beacon, which has shut down twice this month, appeared to be working Thursday.

Boxer said she was not satisfied with the Federal Aviation Administration's response to those outages and a recent power failure at a critical radar center. She also questioned whether the malfunction of a safety system at LAX had contributed to a near-collision there.

"These problems are unacceptable," she wrote in a letter sent Thursday to the acting inspector general of the U.S. Department of Transportation.

She demanded an investigation "to determine what is wrong with FAA's management of the equipment and how it can be improved."

The California Democrat later told reporters that the investigation should also address whether the FAA has the money it needs to properly maintain and upgrade its systems.

She said she and her colleagues in the Senate would "surely" be prepared to allocate more money to the agency if the investigation concluded that was necessary.

She said she would push for Senate hearings if the inspector general declined to launch an investigation.

Those problems have delayed hundreds of flights into LAX during a summer travel season that airport officials expect to be the busiest in five years. They have brought down two systems that are entirely unrelated, except that the FAA owns and operates both.

"As we continue to investigate what happened," FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said, "we're getting more information and would be happy to update Senator Boxer and the rest of the congressional delegation."

Last month, the air traffic control center that guides high-altitude flights through the skies of Southern California lost power after a system of backup generators failed. The blackout was so complete that controllers had to use their cell phones to notify other radar centers.

The outage paralyzed LAX and other Southern California airports for several hours. It delayed, diverted or canceled about 500 flights bound for the region.


Less than a month later, on Aug. 7, a radio beacon that helps guide aircraft onto one of the runways at LAX shut down. The same beacon went down again Monday; the two outages delayed about 60 flights.

Technicians suspect that a malfunctioning sensor incorrectly registered a sudden shift in the beacon's radio beam and shut the system down as a precaution. They replaced the sensor around midnight Wednesday and were monitoring the beacon for any other signs of trouble.

"It seems to me that they're not doing enough maintenance, although they say they are," Boxer said after meeting with FAA officials. "We need to do better."

The union that represents FAA technicians issued a statement from its western regional vice president, asking Boxer to look into staffing levels.

"Inadequate staffing is resulting in more outages, longer recovery times, mounting delays for air travelers and a decreased safety margin," Ray Baggett said in the statement.

Boxer also cited two airfield accidents at LAX as reason for concern.

On July 26, a small commuter plane narrowly avoided a regional jet that was rolling onto its runway as it took off. It was the closest that two planes had come to colliding at LAX in two years.

At the time, a computer system designed to alert controllers in the LAX tower to the possibility of a runway collision was operating in a limited mode. Officials have said it's not clear that the system would have detected the fast-developing conflict in time, even operating at full strength.

Earlier this week, a cargo-loading truck got in the way of an international jumbo jet that was taxiing to the terminals after arriving from Australia. One of the jet's engines was damaged when it collided with the stopped truck.

Boxer also used her time at the microphones Thursday to challenge the Bush administration on homeland security. She said she plans to introduce a bill to ensure that all airplane cargo is screened; she also called for blast-resistant cargo holds and said passenger aircraft should be equipped with defense systems against shoulder-fired missiles.

"We can do more," she said, "and we must do more."

[urbanflyer]

just get in there and give 'em hell already Barbara. Enough talk.

http://www.pbase.com/cityflyer/image/62741977/large.jpg

[Damien]

Barbara has built up some seniority on the Transportation Committee. I'll be interesting to watch how she uses it over the next few years.

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

ive always wondered by LAX doesnt have more of a LA Flavor. i mean, how hard would it be to add a couple In and Outs, a Pinks, a LA Sports store, etc. why do we shy away from our city?

[Wright Concept]

Part of it is that there isn't enough or any space for those little stores inside the terminals.

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

how much space do these places take up though? not much at all, and i know its probably not practical financially, but i rather have a In and Out than a McDonalds or Burger King.

[Wright Concept]

That's why you need the space and a revised terminal designs because LAX layout was designed when the Big Legacy airlines used LAX as a hub and had each individual terminal fit that airline and its loyal customers. Now that's changed and the airport should reflect that.

[urbanflyer]

^
How has it changed exactly? T4? AA T5? DL T7? UA And with increased security apparatus, you can forget more efficient use of terminal space.

[Wright Concept]

Well to my knowledge TWA had Terminal 3, Pan Am in Terminal 2. But the security apparatus is exactly why they need to redesign the layout of the airport to allow more concessions and the space needed to have the security equipment. Also in those security report they've said that large lines from outside to inside pose serious risks due to egress in case of an emergency. You can add more workers, but there is no space to for those workers. You can add more screeners but there's no space for the screening machines.

[netwerk01]

Proposals to Ease Gridlock at LAX to Be Unveiled
Officials will outline options for improving traffic flow, a key element in updating the airport's design.
By Jennifer Oldham, Times Staff Writer
August 23, 2006

In a proposal that would dramatically alter the main roadway to Los Angeles International Airport, city officials are considering double-decking Century Boulevard to relieve gridlock that chokes city streets around the world's fifth-busiest airport.

Building an elevated six-lane concrete roadway over Century — similar to the raised carpool lanes on the Harbor Freeway south of downtown — is one of eight alternatives that officials will unveil tonight to reduce congestion around LAX.

The proposals, which also include adding two under-runway tunnels on Sepulveda Boulevard, were devised over the last several months by airport-area residents and the city agency that operates LAX.

It's likely that a combination of the eight traffic options will be included in a modernization plan for the airport being developed by representatives from the city's airport agency, the cities of El Segundo, Inglewood and Culver City, community groups and Los Angeles County. Officials expect to release the plan this winter.

"No decisions have been made at this point," said Lydia Kennard, executive director of the airport agency, Los Angeles World Airports. "But now we're coming into some tough issues and some tough discussions."

In addition to double-decking Century Boulevard, which is lined with hotels and other airport-related businesses, alternatives include providing direct airport access from the 405 Freeway several blocks to the east and extending the Metro Rail Green Line.

Such measures to move traffic more efficiently into and out of LAX are just part of a plan being crafted to fix the city's 77-year-old airport. The blueprint would replace former Mayor James K. Hahn's controversial $11-billion modernization proposal.

City officials agreed to shelve Hahn's proposal and start over in exchange for a promise by airport-area communities to drop federal and state lawsuits that challenged his plan.

Despite the community input into the proposal being developed under Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, there already is concern about it in communities around LAX.

"LAX strikes again with plans to move the airport closer to homes in Westchester/Playa del Rey. The airport has some new ideas that look a lot like expansion," read a postcard sent by the Alliance for a Regional Solution to Airport Congestion to residents urging them to attend tonight's meeting at LAX, scheduled for 6 p.m. at the Flight Path Learning Center, 6661 W. Imperial Highway.

The new traffic measures mark the third time in 12 years that officials have tried to devise a politically palatable proposal to redo LAX.

The cost so far: more than $150 million.

Hahn eliminated Mayor Richard Riordan's controversial plan to expand the airport to handle 89 million annual passengers when he introduced a proposal that would require most passengers to check in at a facility in a neighborhood near the San Diego Freeway. The airport currently handles about 61.5 million passengers a year.

From the start, critics said Hahn didn't include them in the planning process, and security experts said passengers who used the remote check-in center were vulnerable to attacks by bombs in luggage and vehicles.

The city's agreement with communities around LAX allows city officials to keep parts of Hahn's plan that residents liked, such as a consolidated rental car center in parking Lot C and a new terminal that would be constructed near the sand dunes on the airport's western edge.

It also requires them to restudy controversial elements such as the remote check-in center. In the new plan, officials must find a way to spread out 60% of the vehicle traffic that would have been absorbed by this facility. That's where the new traffic proposals come in.

Planners say they have two choices: They can bring a majority of vehicles directly into the airport off the 405 Freeway or they can route people around the airport using the 105 Freeway and bring them into LAX from the south.The eight possibilities are:

• Providing direct airport access on an interchange off the 405 Freeway onto Century Boulevard. A six-lane double-deck roadway for vehicles traveling to and from LAX would be built on the south side of the boulevard. Local traffic would use the north side and lanes under the raised roadway.

• Bringing vehicles directly off the 405 Freeway onto a double-deck roadway on 98th Street and into the airport. To leave LAX, vehicles would use an elevated expressway over Century. In this alternative, the double-decking over Century would be pushed to the south onto property where cargo facilities currently exist.

• Avoiding the complexities required to build dedicated interchanges from the 405 Freeway onto Century — which would entail demolishing several office buildings — by building an interchange at Arbor Vitae and the freeway to bring vehicles onto 98th Street.

• Building a terminal on the Park One lot at the airport's entrance where many passengers could check in for their flights.

• Constructing two new freeway interchanges to bring vehicles into the airport, from Lennox Boulevard and the 405 Freeway and from the 105 Freeway just east of Aviation Boulevard. This would require building roads below street level to avoid interfering with air traffic control equipment.

• Boring two tunnels, one on either side of the existing Sepulveda Boulevard tunnel under the south runways. A study done in 1992 pegged the cost at $500 million.

• Expanding the 105 Freeway across the airport's south side to reach a new terminal near the sand dunes. This would require digging tunnels under the airport's two sets of parallel runways and bringing the road above ground at the terminal's entrance.

• Creating a road around the airport to bring vehicles to a new terminal near the sand dunes. Vehicles would use the 105 Freeway on the south, which would be extended along the airport's western edge to Westchester Parkway on the north.

Officials sought to dispel criticism that the last proposal mirrored a controversial provision in Riordan's plan that called for a ring road encircling LAX to reach a large terminal on its western edge. The road envisioned in the new plan would not use existing surface streets, except for Westchester Parkway, they said.

"There's only so many solutions to any given problem," Kennard said. "That's why you see variations on a theme."

Planners said they aren't wedded to any specific concept, adding that each one has major obstacles to overcome before it could be included in any airport modernization proposal.

"All of these have issues," said Nick Johnson, a consultant from Johnson Aviation, who is working on the proposal. "A lot of work will have to go into having them solve problems rather than create new ones."

The traffic measures are the first in a series of proposals that will be unveiled by the city's airport agency in coming months. In September, the agency will reveal several options for LAX's northern runway complex.

Airport officials hoped to unveil the runway proposal this week, but postponed it after Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl told Kennard that residents were upset about rumors that the city planned to propose expanding the two northern runways.

Rosendahl wrote to residents that he met with Kennard "who agreed to table such a proposal after I told her it should not be raised unless and until the Federal Aviation Administration can demonstrate to us with hard data that genuine safety concerns warrant even raising the subject."

FAA Administrator Marion Blakey said in an interview last fall that the city must move the two runways on the north airfield farther apart to eliminate close calls between airplanes on the ground. A project to separate the two runways on the south airfield is underway.

Hahn's plan proposed moving the inner runway closer to the terminals, requiring officials to demolish Terminals 1, 2 and 3. This measure would cost around $2 billion. Officials have also considered moving the outer runway closer to Westchester.

"If it was not a safety problem, there would be no motivation to touch the north airfield," Kennard said. "But the FAA said there's a safety problem and its incumbent on us to fix it."

[Wright Concept]

Image of above article.

http://i8.tinypic.com/25fhzz6.gif

[Wright Concept]

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-ed-faa17aug17,0,5176510.story?track=mostviewed-storylevel

EDITORIALS
Out of Control at LAX
Four glitches in a month suggest something's seriously wrong with the airport.

August 27, 2006

THE FIRST TIME ONE OF THE air traffic control systems at Los Angeles International Airport failed, a month ago, it seemed a routine glitch. These things happen with sophisticated technical devices. The second time, on July 26, it was a little scary. Still, it passed with a shrug. Now that the fourth incident in a month has stalled air traffic at LAX, nobody's shrugging anymore. It strains credulity to believe that all these glitches are merely coincidental.

The latest problem occurred Monday when a radio system that helps pilots land in low-visibility conditions went down for 40 minutes, delaying 13 arrivals at LAX. It was the same system that went down Aug. 7 for 3½ hours, delaying 46 flights.

What's puzzling about the problems is that, except for the two most recent shutdowns, they involve separate systems. On July 18, an air traffic facility in Palmdale lost power for two hours, and on July 26 an alarm meant to head off ground collisions had to be shut off after it issued a false alert. The Federal Aviation Administration, which is responsible for maintaining this equipment, has yet to explain any of the incidents, to the chagrin of airport officials. On Monday, they publicly criticized the agency, suggesting that there is a systemwide problem with the equipment and that it should be replaced.

It's possible, even probable, that some of LAX's flight-control gear is outdated or inadequately maintained. The air traffic controllers union certainly thinks so; it blames the FAA for a cost-cutting program it says has delayed equipment upgrades and reduced staffing levels of maintenance technicians. But the union is in a contract battle with the FAA, making it far from an objective observer. It's equally difficult to put full trust in the FAA when it insists that the outages don't compromise safety and that the systems are sound. That's why an independent investigation of the recent troubles at LAX is justified.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) plans to arrive at LAX today for a visit that is to include a discussion of the glitches with William Withycombe, chief of the FAA's Western-Pacific region. Boxer also is expected to call for the Department of Transportation to launch an independent investigation. If the department's inspector general demurs, Boxer should call for hearings by the Senate aviation subcommittee on which she sits.

No one has yet been hurt or killed as a result of LAX's flight-control problems. Investigators need to get to the bottom of them before that changes.

[cookiejarvis]

just get in there and give 'em hell already Barbara. Enough talk.

Fortunately for the DOT, they forgot to add doors to their building!

[Wright Concept]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-aeromexico1sep01,1,3158710,full.story?coll=la-headlines-california (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-aeromexico1sep01,1,3158710,full.story?coll=la-headlines-california)

1986 Plane Disaster in Cerritos Brings 2 Cities Closer Together

The Aeromexico jet crash killed 82 people, including 15 residents of Cerritos and 20 passengers from Loreto, Mexico.
By Ashraf Khalil
Times Staff Writer

September 1, 2006

There was no public memorial service in Cerritos on Thursday, no speeches, nothing to publicly commemorate the 82 people who died when an Aeromexico passenger jet crashed into a residential neighborhood 20 years ago.

Residents seem to want it that way.

"It was a very painful memory in the life of Cerritos," said Don Knabe, who was mayor then and now is a Los Angeles County supervisor.

But in a quiet yet purposeful way, the upscale suburb 20 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles has found a way to mark the air disaster.

It involves the tight bond formed between Cerritos and the small town of Loreto, Mexico, which was home to 20 of the plane's passengers.

Over the years, Cerritos residents have donated time and money to help the town. They provided Loreto with its first ambulance and firetrucks and supplied schools with desks, copy machines and computer equipment. They also are helping fund the construction of a firehouse.

"We were brought together by tragedy," said Jim Weisenberger, founder of the Friends of Loreto Foundation.

"We don't memorialize the crash. We memorialize life and the future and the relationship between the two cities."

The Aeromexico DC-9 had left Loreto early in the morning of Aug. 31, 1986, carrying 64 passengers. As it passed about 6,000 feet above Cerritos en route to Los Angeles International Airport, the jet was clipped by a single-engine plane flown by William Kramer of Rancho Palos Verdes.

Kramer and his wife and daughter were killed instantly. The damaged jet lost control and dived into the quiet neighborhood just before noon.

In addition to the 67 people killed on the two planes, 15 Cerritos residents died amid the flaming wreckage and burning jet fuel that destroyed at least eight homes.

The unexpected trauma was something that Cerritos residents had a hard time forgetting.

Paul Bowlen, the current mayor, was on his way home from church when he saw the billowing smoke. After seeing the crash site, Bowlen said, he was unable to get on a plane for at least five years.

"And even then it was a white-knuckler," he said.

Residents actively resisted attempts to publicly commemorate the disaster. A 1996 plan to build a memorial at the crash site was shelved after two dozen residents signed a petition opposing it.

Instead, the City Council decided to hold a moment of silence during a council meeting.

The city finally did build a memorial earlier this year. The sculpture, bearing the names of all of the victims, was dedicated in March next to City Hall.

The only reason longtime residents felt comfortable with the memorial, Knabe said, "is because it was away from the crash site."

The Friends of Loreto Foundation was formed in the early 1990s when Weisenberger and a few other Cerritos residents visited the quiet Baja California town of about 10,000 residents. The town has an international airport that fuels the local tourism industry.

The hospital in Loreto, he recalled, "looked like something out of World War I."

There was no defibrillator, and the nearest X-ray machine was 40 miles away. The town now has its own machines, which provided by the Friends of Loreto Foundation.

"It just kind of grew into something special," Weisenberger said.

"They felt the same pain that we did."

This spring, a delegation from Loreto came to Cerritos to attend the dedication ceremony for the long-delayed memorial to the crash victims.

Mayor Bowlen recalled that his Loreto counterpart, Davis Osuna, delivered an emotional speech that explained his personal connection to the tragedy.

Osuna was a member of the Aeromexico ground crew in the Loreto airport, and was one of the last people to speak with the pilot before takeoff.

During the ceremony, Bowlen watched as Cerritos and Loreto residents looked at the names of their dead relatives on the memorial's stone.

He said he was reminded of his visit to the Vietnam War memorial in Washington.

"They would read the names and get that faraway stare, like they were remembering," he said.


ashraf.khalil@latimes.com


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-getaway1sep01,0,5683243.story?coll=la-home-headlines (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-getaway1sep01,0,5683243.story?coll=la-home-headlines)
Q&A

Expected Airport Turbulence Smooths Out Around L.A.

By Jennifer Oldham
Times Staff Writer

September 1, 2006

The busiest summer travel season at Los Angeles International Airport since Sept. 11, 2001, draws to a close this weekend with the Labor Day holiday. An estimated 810,000 travelers are expected to use the airport today through Monday, up about 4% over the same period last year.

LAX will be the nation's second-busiest airport over the Labor Day weekend — after Chicago's O'Hare International — up from No. 7 on last year's list of bustling U.S. airfields, according to online travel service Orbitz.

With more passengers traveling but fewer airplane seats to U.S. destinations to accommodate them, travel experts predicted that the period from Memorial Day through today would test the patience of even the most frequent fliers.

New security measures put in place after the Aug. 10 arrests in Britain of suspects who allegedly plotted to blow up airliners with liquid explosives also threatened to create even longer lines and flight delays.

So, what can a holiday weekend traveler expect? Based on developments this summer:

Question: Are new requirements that ban liquids on airplanes creating longer lines at security checkpoints?

Answer: No. Passengers caught on quickly to the new rules, leaving airport officials with extra empty trash bins throughout terminals. The new restrictions are, however, contributing to longer waits at the ticket counter as passengers check bags that they used to carry on. At LAX, airlines reported up to a 40% increase in checked baggage.



Q: Has the new no-liquids policy made the usually tedious boarding process easier to endure?

A: Yes. Flight attendants report "acres of space" in the overhead bins, as more luggage goes to the cargo hold. Getting on and off airplanes is easier, as passengers are throwing fewer elbows in an effort to heave heavy bags into the overhead. But on the flip side, passengers also say they have to wait longer, on average, at baggage carousels. The new policies prompted airlines to bring on additional personnel to try to speed bags to the carousels.



Q: What exactly is banned in the passenger compartments?

A: Passengers are not allowed to carry the following items on board: lotions, sprays, gels, lip balm, soap and beverages. Medications with a prescription attached are allowed as long as the information matches the passenger's name on the ticket. Baby food and formula are OK too, but an infant must be traveling with the items. The new restrictions are expected to remain in place indefinitely.



Q: Do I have to take off my shoes?

A: Yes. Shoe screening is now mandatory.



Q: How early should I arrive for my flight?

A: Get to the airport two hours before a domestic trip and three hours in advance of an international journey.



Q: How many people have visited LAX so far this year?

A: About 35.8 million passed through the world's fifth-busiest airport from January through July, virtually unchanged from the same period last year.



Q: Are the region's other facilities taking passengers away from LAX?

A: Yes. Facilities in Burbank, Santa Ana, Long Beach and Ontario had predicted record crowds this summer. Officials at Burbank's Bob Hope Airport had worried they would run out of parking, forcing them to redirect passengers to a garage in Van Nuys operated by Los Angeles' airport agency. Lots at the Burbank airport were routinely full this summer, but travelers were able to find space in the valet lot or short-term parking, according to a report compiled by the airport authority. Regional airport officials urge passengers to leave as much time to travel through their facilities as they would if using LAX.



Q: Los Angeles' airport agency worried that a shortage of security screeners would create long lines at security checkpoints this summer. Are there enough screeners?

A: More screeners work at LAX — 2,100 — than at any other airport in the United States. Officials had worried that they would be short by 300 screeners this summer. But a series of initiatives that included reconfiguring security lanes to free up screeners to relieve bottlenecks around the airport, converting a nearby school into a hiring center and bringing on a contractor to move luggage from ticket counters to bomb-detection machines helped avert a staffing crisis. The center has allowed officials to hire dozens of new screeners in a few months. Lines are shorter, passengers report. Even so, long queues that stretch onto airport sidewalks, which experts say makes travelers vulnerable to a bomb attack, are not "gone forever," as a federal official declared in June.



Q: With flights running full at Southern California airports this summer, experts had predicted that more people would be denied boarding even when they had a ticket. Were they?

A: No. According to statistics collected by federal officials, the number of people who were "involuntarily denied boarding," as it's known in aviation parlance, did not significantly increase this summer. The number of people who voluntarily gave up their seats, however, did go up.



Q: Airport officials shut down LAX's southernmost runway July 29 so they could relocate it to improve safety. Air traffic controllers worried that losing a runway — leaving the busy airport with three — would cause flight delays. Did it?

A: The runway closing hasn't itself increased delays, officials say, but contributed to delays when a key instrument-landing system malfunctioned several times this summer. Without the southernmost runway, and the landing system, controllers had to halve the number of flights they could accept per hour.

jennifer.oldham@latimes.com

[Wright Concept]

http://www.argonautnewspaper.com/articles/2006/08/31/news_-_features/top_stories/3lax.prt

LAX grows under Specific Plan Study; 2 public meetings draw heavy criticism
BY HELGA GENDELL

Several of the proposed concept development goals of the LAX Specific Plan Study for Los Angeles International Airport by Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) would increase the "footprint" of LAX (Los Angeles International Airport) by building a new West Satellite Terminal and increasing capacity on airport access roads.

LAWA is the city airport agency that owns and operates LAX and three other Southern California airports.
The fifth pair of public meetings for the LAX Specific Plan Study was held Wednesday and Saturday, August 23rd and 26th, at the Flight Path Learning Center and Museum, 6661 Imperial Highway in Westchester.

The Wednesday night meeting had over 130 attendees — the highest number of any of the public hearings — and the Saturday meeting had approximately 80 attendees.

When Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa ran for mayor, he signed a campaign pledge with the Alliance for a Regional Solution to Airport Congestion (ARSAC), pledging to keep LAX "within existing facilities" and to work for regionalization of air traffic.

The West Satellite Concourse was originally identified as a "yellow light" project under a compromise to Mayor Jim Hahn's LAX Master Plan Alternative D.

It is now considered a "green light" project that can be developed under the legal settlement with the Cities of El Segundo, Inglewood and Culver City, Alliance for a Regional Solution to Airport Congestion, the County of Los Angeles, the City of Los Angeles, the City Council of Los Angeles, former mayor James Hahn, Los Angeles World Airports, the Board of Airport Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles and the California Coastal Commission.

"We oppose the majority of all concepts considered that would expand LAX capacity, and after the legal agreement expires in 2020, LAX could increase the gate cap for terminals tremendously," said Denny Schneider, vice president of the Alliance for a Regional Solution to Airport Congestion (ARSAC).

Modernization of LAX, security and the rebuilding of Tom Bradley International Terminal are acknowledged by many to be critical, but some meeting attendees said that many concept development goals proposed by LAWA go beyond modernization and directly to expansion.

Discussion of the Northern Runway proposed project — moving Runways 24R and 24L and building a center taxiway — was tabled at both the Wednesday and Saturday meeting at the request of Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who represents the 11th District, which includes LAX.

Rosendahl made the request to Lydia Kennard, the executive director of LAX, requesting that "this potential proposal be tabled until or unless the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) can demonstrate hard data that genuine safety concerns warrant even raising the subject."

While LAWA officials contend that moving the Northern Runways and building a center taxiway would alleviate incursions, testimony before the Congressional House of Representatives Aviation Subcommittee by Bill Withycombe, the regional administrator of the FAA Western Pacific Region did not support that claim.

"Roughly 80 percent of runway incursions at LAX occur on the south side of the airport," said Withycombe.

The South Side Airfield runways are currently under construction to move them and to build a center taxiway.

Withycombe's testimony can be found on the FAA Web site by entering his name in "Search" at http://www.faa.gov/news/testimo ny/news_story.cfm?newsId=6965

Mike Doucette, chief of airport planning for LAWA, presented the proposed concept development goals — stating that these concepts had been developed through public input and from advisory committees — geared toward improving access to LAX:

— create direct freeway access to the LAX terminal curbs;

— reduce congestion on airport access roads;

— increase points of access to and from the Central Terminal Area;

— establish a direct transit connection to the LAX terminals;

— increase security on LAX terminal access roads;

— reduce air quality impacts caused by traffic congestion in and around LAX;

— reduce air quality impacts caused by traffic congestion in and around LAX;

— increase capacity on airport access roads; and

— reduce congestion on Central Terminal Area curb fronts.

Doucette said that 150 intersections around the airport have been monitored to determine how the traffic operates and where it comes from.

A Green Line Study, an Air Apportionment Study and a study to determine origin and destination of LAX passengers are also planned, said Doucette.

Another project by LAWA includes electrification of cargo gates and hangars to avoid running of jet engines for use of power, thereby reducing air pollution, said Doucette.

All of LAWA's ground vehicles must also seek alternative fuel sources to eliminate air pollution, according to Doucette.

After Doucette's presentation, attendees split into breakout groups to discuss the concept ideas, to provide feedback, or present improvements to those concepts.

Feedback from each breakout group was then presented to the entire audience.

A number of attendees said the concept meeting was flawed because no one had prior access to the concept ideas, making it impossible to intelligently comment on the concepts or to provide detailed feedback in such a short period of time.

Another common complaint was that the core of the comments and concerns made at the breakout sessions was lost in simply writing the subject of the comment on the easels provided, leaving out and filtering crucial concerns of the attendees.

Several attendees said that LAWA's intent was to "divide and conquer" by separating the audience into groups, with LAWA facilitators to guide the groups to consider specific ideas, and failing to put the cohesive thoughts expressed at the breakout sessions into an understandable format.

Others said the only way these public meetings could be fair would be to record all questions and feedback and have that information available to everyone.

Other audience questions and comments included:

— Why is the overall timeframe so short to process the information before it is acted upon?

— Who came up with questions number three and seven (increasing points of access to and from the Central Terminal Area; and the increase of capacity on airport access roads)?

— The concept plan is just a rehash of previous mayoral administration ideas with no new ideas.

— Exactly what is causing the traffic to LAX through residential neighborhoods.

Some audience members asked how FAA-driven plans for airfield redesign not only at LAX and in Southern California but across the nation are affecting the concept development goals. (According to the FAA Web site, some airports have no options left in landside redesign.)

Concept development goals included:

The Century Boulevard Double-deck Concept would locate a new interchange at the San Diego (I-405) Freeway, routing traffic directly to the Central Terminal Area at LAX on the top level of Century Boulevard with an elevated double-deck of six lanes (three on each side).

The south side of Century Boulevard would be utilized to avoid blocking the views of hotels located at Sepulveda and Aviation Boulevards, and access to local businesses and Westchester would need to be provided, according to Doucette.

The 98th Street and Century Boulevard Concept would offer a roadway westbound on 98th Street and eastbound on Century Boulevard with six lanes to the airport, and would tie in with the rental car facilities, improve southbound and northbound traffic, and allow the potential for Green Line extension planning.

The Arbor Vitae Street Concept would provide a smaller interchange at Arbor Vitae Street southbound to the airport, elevated down 98th Street, returning on Century Boulevard.

The Front-Door Access Concept would utilize Terminal 1 as a drop-off/pick-up point only, siphoning off traffic before it bottlenecks at this point, with an Automated People Mover stop (formerly a "yellow light," now a "green light" project under the legal settlement) and a Sepulveda and Century Boulevard interchange that doesn't funnel traffic through the entire Central Terminal Area.

Lennox/Century (I-105) Freeway Interchange Concept would provide an airport interchange where a northbound off-ramp currently exists, with an exit at Lennox, using the elevated 98th Street into the airport and Century Boulevard out of the airport.

Sepulveda Tunnels Concept would provide for construction of tunnels on the east and west sides of the existing tunnel, eliminating the current build-up of traffic to enter the Century Freeway (I-105), providing access to the Central Terminal Area and exiting to the west from a tunnel without stops.

Doucette said the tunnel concept was first studied in 1992-93 and would need to be restudied to count traffic alleviation and address security and potential flooding during rainy periods.

The tunnel concept would retain all existing local movement on Sepulveda Boulevard, providing direct access southbound or westbound to the freeway.

The Midfield Satellite Concept (originally a "yellow light" concept, now a "green light" concept through the legal settlement) would take traffic west on Imperial Highway on a partially elevated roadway and off Sepulveda Boulevard, allowing traffic from Lincoln Boulevard to Westchester Parkway and then down to the airport.

West Satellite Concourse (a former "yellow light" project, now a "green light" project due to legal settlement) would place a terminal at the west end of the airport, adjacent to Pershing Drive and Westchester Parkway, extending the Century Freeway (I-105) onto airport property, and utilizing Westchester Parkway and part of Pershing Drive.

Doucette told the audience that Westchester Parkway was originally a mitigation for business use during an earlier period, and that as such it could be annexed for use by LAWA.

This concept would bring approximately six to eight million passengers to the West Satellite terminal, planned for at least 25 percent international travel, according to some individuals.

Under the original LAX Master Plan Alternative D, this terminal would have been built behind the Tom Bradley International Terminal, which is scheduled to undergo renovation.

"Federal laws are stopping opponents of LAX expansion, and residents need to call Mayor Villaraigosa's office to make their voices heard about their opposition to the airport's expansion," said ARSAC's Schneider.

A call by The Argonaut to Mayor Villaraigosa transportation deputy Jaime de la Vega had not been returned at press time.

"I've seen all the options and I like none," said Congresswoman Maxine Waters at the Wednesday night public meeting.

BREAKOUT GROUP COMMENTS — Regionalization of air traffic throughout Southern California was a critical concern, with many at the meeting, who said that not enough is being done to achieve regionalization.

The greatest opposition expressed by attendees was against the West Satellite Concourse terminal and the potential loss of Westchester Parkway as a primary access road.

At the end of the Saturday meeting, attorney Edgar Saenz, field deputy for Congresswoman Waters, asked for a show of hands of the audience of those in favor of the West Satellite terminal, and not one hand was raised.

When Saenz asked how many were opposed, a majority of hands were raised.

Critics say the West Satellite concept would take away access to Westchester Parkway.

The loss of Imperial Highway and access to the freeway system were also cited as a negative aspect.

More air pollution and noise added to the airplanes already taking off over the ocean within proximity of homes, and damage to the El Segundo blue butterfly dune habitat were also mentioned.

The concept that seemed most favored was the double-decking of Century Boulevard with tunnels on Sepulveda Boulevard.

Other issues of concern included:

— security and terrorism;

— the Green Line, the Flyaway and other forms of rapid transit to cut down on vehicle traffic;

— mitigation of vehicle emissions related to global warming;

— elimination of commercial truck traffic near the airport;

— access to Westchester High School and St. Bernard High School if the West Satellite concept is chosen;

— collection points near passengers homes where they could drive and take a shuttle or other rapid transit to the airport without bringing passengers to local areas to park and congest traffic; and

— Lincoln Boulevard traffic congestion.

Some attendees said that concepts don't exist "in a vacuum," and questioned how many people would be flying out of LAX.

For more information, www.laxmasterplan.org

[Steve2726]

:previous:


At the end of the Saturday meeting, attorney Edgar Saenz, field deputy for Congresswoman Waters, asked for a show of hands of the audience of those in favor of the West Satellite terminal, and not one hand was raised.

When Saenz asked how many were opposed, a majority of hands were raised.



When you ask for the opinion of a bunch of people who live within walking distance of the airport, of course they are going to be opposed to any expansion. As for the remaining 8 million of us who use the airport frequently, please for the love of god, expand and modernize LAX asap!

[Wright Concept]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lax7sep07,1,3663089.story?coll=la-headlines-california (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lax7sep07,1,3663089.story?coll=la-headlines-california)

LAX to Open Up Concession Contracts in Hopes That Sales Will Soar
The city is opening contract bids in hopes that sales at 51 shops and restaurants will soar.

By Jennifer Oldham
Times Staff Writer

September 7, 2006

With millions of dollars in food and retail concessions up for grabs, officials will debate today how to make shopping at Los Angeles International Airport live up to the city's reputation as a world-class consumption capital.

The Airport Commission is expected to ask companies to submit bids to operate 51 shops and restaurants at the world's fifth-busiest airport.

"There's room for the concessionaires to improve sales and for us to improve revenues," said Karen Tozer, concessions manager at the city agency that operates LAX.

Lobbying of city officials by companies vying for the lucrative contracts already has begun in earnest. A recent luncheon speech by airport chief Lydia Kennard drew many of the city's prominent lobbyists. In her talk, Kennard emphasized the need for a fair, transparent contracting process.

"This is the big prize," said Fernando Guerra, director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University. Guerra is representing a vendor interested in a concession contract. "Every single lobbyist that I know has been contacted — even to the point where some lobbyists, I believe, are representing more than one company."

Much is at stake for the city of Los Angeles as well. In the 2005 fiscal year, concessions constituted 25% of the airport agency's nearly $485-million operating revenue. Most of the contracts are set to expire next year.

Airport officials have tried for years to figure out how to make shops and restaurants at LAX more appealing. The average LAX passenger earns $92,520 a year. But half of the travelers at the airport do not spend money on food or drinks. Sales revenue in retail stores falls below that of many other major airports.

In 2005, 21 airports surpassed LAX in sales per departing passenger at food and retail outlets.

To make more money, many airports, including Pittsburgh International, created mini-malls in their terminals by hiring developers to make improvements and to recruit and manage stores and restaurants.

Others, such as San Francisco International, cut ties to umbrella companies that ran their concessions for years, opting instead to lease restaurants directly to vendors. Sales at food outlets there increased 30% after the airport decided several years ago not to renew its contract with HMSHost, which had managed the airport's 60 or so food outlets for more than 40 years.

"We made a big push to get locally named restaurants that would be well-known to travelers," said Mike McCarron, the airport's director of community affairs.

At LAX, officials also hope to create a local flavor — think surf shops, luxury brands available on Rodeo Drive and trends along Melrose Avenue — that will let passengers know they're in Los Angeles. They also hope to entice major national brands.

Discussion at the commission meeting, expected to attract an overflow crowd, probably will involve choosing a management model for the city's airport concessions program. Airport staff members are expected to propose that the commission request bids from many types of operators. But analysts say such a plan could lead to confusion and make it difficult for officials to compare bids.

"It's clear the airport doesn't know what it wants," said Pauline Armbrust, president and chief executive of Armbrust Aviation Group, which publishes Airport Revenue News.

Among those bidding on contracts will be: prime concessionaires, companies that manage their own stores and those of subcontractors; developers who would take control of the entire program; and outlets that would lease directly from the airport. The airport agency didn't want to limit the bids, officials said.

Unions and current concessionaires argue that the city should retain the existing model, which includes several prime concessionaires, as well as outlets that lease directly from the airport.

HMSHost, based in Bethesda, Md., operates 45 food and beverage outlets at LAX, including California Pizza Kitchen, Starbucks, Burger King and Chili's. The corporation, which has served the airport for 35 years, spent $26 million to improve the shops it operates, said Rana Florida, HMSHost's senior director of communications.

"The Los Angeles airport is very important to us," Florida said. "It's one of our top three important markets."

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa prefers the existing model, his staff told the commission in May.

But developers who have increased sales at other U.S. airports contend that the current model's generic feel contributes to lower sales.

"Everybody hates the status quo," said Jon W. Plebani, a director in the Washington, D.C., office of Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, which represents BAA USA, an airport operator and concessions developer.

Since January, BAA and its representatives have met with city officials to try to sell them on their philosophy, which includes spending money to make more space for concessions and bringing in popular local and national brands. The developer acts as a landlord, turning over about 3% of gross annual sales to the airport.

Union advocates say developers tend to bring in small companies that do not provide good wages or benefits. But BAA says that bringing in more stores heightens competition and creates better-paying jobs.

City officials say they will not be influenced by lobbyists, who have a long history of giving political donations on behalf of clients who want the contracts. The airport is no exception.

In the late 1980s, several of Mayor Tom Bradley's appointees helped raise political contributions from lobbyists and contractors. A city audit found that a group of politically well-connected minorities and women reaped millions in profits between 1986 and 1989 after investing virtually no money of their own and doing little or no work in an airport concessions business.

But times have changed, officials say, even while acknowledging that the perception still exists that lobbyists could have undue influence over the officials who will decide who gets airport concession contracts.

City Controller Laura Chick acknowledged that the potential for abuse in the contracting process "is enormous," but insisted the safeguards are much improved. The watchdog role "is a very changed game, from inside the city and from inside the airport department, the controller's office and the mayor's office," she said.

jennifer.oldham@latimes.com

[Wright Concept]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-airport8sep08,1,2160477.story?coll=la-headlines-california (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-airport8sep08,1,2160477.story?coll=la-headlines-california)

Panel OKs Deal for Ads at L.A., Ontario Airports; Delays Vote on Concessions

A six-year deal with JCDecaux is expected to bring up to $80million for the agency. A decision on concessions at LAX was put off.
By Jennifer Oldham
Times Staff Writer

September 8, 2006

Joining airports the world over, officials decided Thursday to allow advertising in terminals at Los Angeles and Ontario international airports.

The Airport Commission voted unanimously to give a six-year contract to JCDecaux to install 365 advertising displays at LAX and 31 at Ontario. The deal is expected to bring up to $80 million to the city's airport agency over the life of the contract.

But commissioners deferred a decision on how to bid 51 lucrative concessions at LAX, after hearing from multiple speakers representing retail and food shops. Officials plan to work with labor leaders to ensure that the bid proposal protects existing jobs and pay levels at the airport. The commission is expected to take up the matter again this fall.

Commissioners hailed the awarding of the advertising contract.

"Outside impressions of our airports are that they are obsolete," Commissioner Fernando Torres-Gil told JCDecaux representatives. "It's your responsibility, of sorts, to help us improve our image."

Airport planners for years had hesitated to install advertising at LAX because they feared it would interfere with signs directing travelers around the airport.

But officials are looking for new ways to raise money as airline revenue sags.

Advertising is so ubiquitous at other airports that it's likely that many passengers hadn't even noticed that it's never been present at 78-year-old LAX.

"This has indeed been a relatively long process," said Bernard Parisot, president and co-chief executive of JCDecaux. "This is really creating a totally new approach to airport advertising."

By year's end, travelers riding escalators down to baggage carousels may be treated to movie trailers on 6-by-12-foot screens suspended from the ceiling. When they arrive to claim their bags, passengers may see ads on large lighted suitcases perched on carousels.

Others checking in for flights in the Tom Bradley International Terminal may be able to look up and see massive "wave" displays that feature motorized panels that are latched together hanging from the ceiling.

Pictures on the displays change at the same time the displays undulate.

Officials expect to consider advertising outside the terminals and in parking garages in the future.

JCDecaux will also research other marketing opportunities at the airports — such as bringing in a company that makes high-end fixtures to retrofit LAX's outdated restrooms.

*

jennifer.oldham@latimes.com

[LosAngelesBeauty]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-baggage9sep09,0,1502706.story?track=tothtml


LAX Launches Remote Check-In

Passengers will be able to drop off luggage and get boarding passes at sites throughout the city.

By Jennifer Oldham
Times Staff Writer

September 9, 2006

Instead of hauling bags, strollers, skis and other items through long lines at ticket counters to check them on airplanes, LAX passengers will be able to drop off luggage and obtain boarding passes at locations throughout the city, under a program announced Friday.

Officials hope that the program will revolutionize how passengers use Los Angeles International Airport and will eliminate an inconvenience for travelers and decrease the security risk presented by long lines at ticket counters and at skycap stands. Experts have long said travelers in these lines are vulnerable to a luggage or car bomb attack.

"One less bag is one less passenger to be processed in overcrowded lobbies," Larry Fetters, security director at LAX for the U.S. Transportation Security Administration, said at a news conference Friday to launch the program.

The remote baggage check-in program began Friday at the Van Nuys FlyAway park-and-ride in the San Fernando Valley. At a counter near the terminal entrance, passengers can check up to two bags and obtain a boarding pass for a $5 per-person fee. They then board a bus for LAX, where they go straight to the security checkpoint.

The service — to begin at other locations soon — is the first in the U.S. to combine remote baggage check-in with an airport shuttle service.

"While today's announcement is one small step for improved customer service and security at LAX, it's not hard to imagine that in a few short years, this will be the smart way to travel in L.A.," Lydia Kennard, executive director of the city's airport agency, said.

The service will be launched this month at the Los Angeles Convention Center, the Union Station FlyAway and the Port of Los Angeles cruise ship terminal. Officials hope to install remote baggage check-in at airport parking lots, hotels and rental car facilities. They will also incorporate it in new FlyAway facilities being planned throughout Southern California.

"We've made a concerted effort over the last year to address congestion at the airport," said Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who announced the new service over a loudspeaker at the Van Nuys FlyAway terminal. "You're going to see a lot more in the way of these measures."

Officials plan a marketing blitz, including radio ads, Internet displays and other ventures to promote the service. There's a potentially large market at the Van Nuys FlyAway alone — up to 90,000 passengers a month use the facility.

If it catches on, the service could give passengers back some of the time they've lost after rigorous screening requirements prompted officials to advise them to arrive at the airport two hours before a domestic flight and three hours before an international trip.

Airlines that fly 60% of the domestic travelers at LAX are participating in the service, which is being operated for the city's airport agency by Orlando-based Baggage Airline Guest Services Inc., or BAGS. They are American, American Eagle, Alaska, Continental, Delta, Horizon, Northwest, Ted, United and United Express and SkyWest.

BAGS, which processes more than 10,000 passengers a day in 15 cities, hopes to offer its service to international travelers next year.

The service has caught on quickly since BAGS started offering it in 2003. In Florida, 85% of airline travelers who stay in Disney resorts take advantage of the service, said Craig C. Mateer, president of BAGS.

At LAX, bags collected from travelers at the Van Nuys FlyAway will be stored in a separate part of the bus and then screened once they arrive at the airport. Travelers can use the service from 4:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily and must check in 2 1/2 hours before their flights.

Officials hope that more airlines will soon sign up to provide the service to their passengers.

"Once airlines see how successful this is, they'll get on board," said Michael Biagi, director for landside operations at the city's airport agency. "Their travelers will demand it."

jennifer.oldham@latimes.com

[Wright Concept]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-lax11sep11,0,4195735.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-lax11sep11,0,4195735.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials)
EDITORIAL

Modernize LAX Shops
City has a chance to run the airport like a business and not a patronage dispenser.

September 11, 2006

FOR SCORES OF MILLIONS OF VISITORS every year, Los Angeles International Airport is their first impression of the city and the region. Luckily, they're not coming there for the concessions. The shopping at LAX is as bland as L.A.'s is glamorous.

That could soon change — but only if city officials are willing to buck their own system. Contracts for 51 storefronts (of more than 200) at LAX are once again up for review by the Airport Commission, which is expected to make its decisions sometime next year.

The signing of multimillion-dollar deals to run duty-free shops, restaurants and other businesses at the city-owned airport has for at least two decades been the source of some of L.A.'s worst political scandals. Under Mayor Tom Bradley, airport commissioners solicited campaign funds from contractors, and some political insiders collected millions on contracts without actually managing any concessions. Mayor James Hahn was also dogged by allegations of pay-to-play shenanigans involving airport contracts.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa had to give back thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from employees of a Florida company seeking an airport concession. It remains to be seen whether Villaraigosa is willing to cross his union support, which favors maintaining the status quo at the airport because new contractors might not hire union workers.

LAX's concessions are characterized by generic national chains, cookie-cutter storefronts and inflated prices. It's little wonder that in 2005, 21 airports surpassed it in sales per departing passenger at their retail facilities. This matters to taxpayers because a quarter of the revenue for the city agency that runs Los Angeles' four airports comes from concessions.

The Airport Commission, whose seven members are appointed by the mayor, deferred a decision last week. At issue is whether to continue awarding concessions to companies that then lease the shops, or to lease the spaces individually. Or the city could hire developers to essentially build and lease malls in the airport, an approach that has been successful in cities such as Pittsburgh. Then maybe LAX could have shopping as interesting as the city it serves.

[ReDSPork02]

Restored Giant Pylons Put on Nightly Show at LAX
After a $2.5-million makeover, the towering display is back in service with a more economical system offering 16 million colors.
By David Pierson, Times Staff Writer
September 15, 2006


Los Angeles International Airport regained some of its luster this week when the 26 glass-and-steel pylons that line Century Boulevard were illuminated with colors at sunset, marking the first time the towering columns worked as they were intended since they were dimmed for repairs six months ago.

Dubbed Los Angeles' "electronic Stonehenge," the pylons were unveiled six years ago in time for the Democratic National Convention. They offered viewers an effervescent glow that could be seen by airline passengers from 3,000 feet.

But by 2004, the complicated lighting system began to malfunction. Some pylons blacked out while others were splotchy. To fix them, electricians had to hang upside-down in harnesses.

Nearby businesses and hotels began complaining that the defective lights were an embarrassment, especially when tourists asked what was wrong.

To fix the problem, the $15-million display received a $2.5-million makeover in the last six months. The system was operating Sunday night when the lights were illuminated red, white and blue in remembrance of 9/11, said Tom Winfrey, a spokesman for Los Angeles World Airports.

"I think they've become quite popular," Winfrey said. "They've become a theme building to identify Los Angeles."

Workers had to replace the stage lights that were used to illuminate the pylons with a light-emitting-diode system. The new lights increase the pylons' possible variations from 300 colors to 16 million.

The new lights consume 75% less electricity than before, and the airport is expected to save $960,000 in annual maintenance costs.The pylon display consists of 11 translucent, tempered glass cylinders 25 feet to 60 feet high in the median of Century Boulevard and a ring of 15 100-foot-tall pylons at Century and Sepulveda boulevards.

The installation has become a Los Angeles landmark of sorts even though not all critics loved it. Some saw the gateway project — which includes giant letters spelling "LAX" — as a rush job for the convention that might be more appropriate in Las Vegas.

But over time, the pylons found their place next to LAX's more famous icon, the flying-saucer-style Theme Building, which is home to Encounter restaurant. That building, at the center of the airport's main loop, was meant to evoke the feeling of futuristic travel and is considered a classic of modern architecture.

The restored pylons are illuminated nightly from dusk to dawn.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/los_angeles_metro/la-me-lights15sep15,1,3108153.story?track=rss

[Wright Concept]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-morrison14sep14,1,4194516.column?coll=la-news-columns

PATT MORRISON
Patt Morrison: A World-Class Bus Terminal
There isn't a speck of L.A.'s vibrancy reflected in the city's run-down, poorly serviced international airport.
Patt Morrison

September 14, 2006

SNACKS ON a plane!

No? OK, how about … steaks on a plane!

Of course it's a writing gimmick, but did you see the movie? The snakes on that plane ate better than most passengers — at least the food was fresh.

As for the food at the movie's destination airport, LAX, it gets even worse reviews than the film. But that could change.

I say this cautiously because it involves government process. Before you can say "triple nonfat pumpkin spice latte, extra shot, one Splenda, one Equal, light whipped cream," most of the concession contracts at Los Angeles International Airport will expire. Who gets the new contracts on 51 stores, duty-free shops, snack stands and bars will determine whether LAX remains an intolerable void filled mostly by gut-clogging chain pizza and clone-lit thrillers, or an airport as cool and engaging as this city aspires to be.

These concession contracts are a major-league political ballgame in L.A. A quarter of the airport's operating budget — which is close to $500 million a year — comes from these shops, which adds up to an astounding business in Mentos and "I {heart} L.A." T-shirts.

It's been an astounding business for the politicians too. In the civic past, landing those airport contracts was like baiting a hook with a little fish to get a big one. A wink-and-nod shakedown, a no-bid contract, a nice campaign contribution — and you could haul in a contract worth millions.

All that is supposedly behind us now. Last year, Antonio Villaraigosa, who appoints the seven members of the Airport Commission, returned campaign contributions from employees of a Florida outfit sniffing around the LAX concessions. The public is starting to watch how these deals are done. More importantly, the city controller, Laura Chick, is watching how these deals are done.

There's reason to hope that the end of the old contracts means the end of the old LAX. An airport is nobody's idea of destination shopping or dining, but even if thwarting international terrorism means a two- or three-hour airport wait, you and I shouldn't have to do our part battling Al Qaeda evil-doers on a meal of beef jerky and Lorna Doones.

Other airports put LAX to shame. Pittsburgh's has a salon with manicures and pedicures. Seattle's has a massage bar and decent shopping. Detroit's has an oxygen spa and manicures and pedicures. Vegas' has a fully fitted gym, if you can manage some lifts amid all the cigarette smoke.

Other airports have showers and nap stalls. Other airports give you booties so you aren't walking barefoot in gunk while your shoes roll through security scanners. Other airports have shops with unusual stuff you can't find at your next stop. Other airports have lockers with fingerprint ID access so you don't have to tote your carry-on bags everywhere.

And what does the world's fifth-busiest airport have to offer by way of creature comforts and consumer enticements? With a few exceptions, food you'd find in frat house refrigerators, Dickensian bathrooms, dirt and noise and shops full of dreary, desperate, last-minute, they're-calling-my-flight souvenirs.

The average LAX traveler earns $92,520 a year. But half of those travelers don't spend a dime at the airport. Not one. Travelers at 21 other airports drop more money because there's better stuff to spend it on. Passengers spend more dough in the Winnipeg airport, in San Francisco and Calgary and Newark. Newark, Antonio! The shame of it.

Writer Pico Iyer lived at LAX for a week in the 1990s for his book, "The Global Soul." He's a junk-food freak, so he considered it "the center of haute cuisine." As for the airport itself, he said it "seemed to give up on even asserting a sense of hope or promise…. There are very few welcomes to L.A. at the airport and, in that sense, it acts as an antechamber, ridding the visitor of his illusions very quickly."

Oh, fine. We spend multiple millions pitching L.A. to the world as a warm, welcoming world city, the dream capital, the home galaxy to the stars — and all that PR gets wiped out the minute people step off the plane.

It will take substantial political will to cut the umbilical cord to major-chain concessionaires — who, after all, have a lot of leverage, a lot of employees and a lot of money to give to political campaigns — and try something different.

Still, I'm hopeful: Why not a "book swap" — leave the one you just read and pick up something someone else left behind? Or teams of Marilyn Monroe and Darth Vader look-alikes hired to give lost travelers directions to the right gates. Why not a chance to get a layover henna tattoo? Or a tarot reading? ("Your bag really will be waiting for you at your destination.")


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
patt.morrison@latimes.com

[LosAngelesBeauty]

^^ What are the chances we're going to get a new LAX concession contract that is more upscale? This is very important. Thank you LA TIMES for bringing light to this very embarrassing issue!!!

[Wright Concept]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/los_angeles_metro/la-me-lax19sep19,1,1252405.story?coll=la-commun-los_angeles_metro

$503-Million Pact Awarded for LAX Work
Crews will begin a major overhaul of the Tom Bradley International Terminal early next year. The deal is the largest in city history.
By Jennifer Oldham
Times Staff Writer

September 19, 2006

The city's Airport Commission unanimously approved the largest single contract in Los Angeles history Monday, voting to award a $503-million deal to Clark Construction Group and McCarthy Building Cos. to overhaul the Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX.

The companies, which bid on the project as a joint venture, will start refurbishing the 23-year-old terminal early next year. Up to 400 workers will be on the job at a time, as the building continues to be used by 34 airlines and 10 million passengers a year. Officials call it the most complex project of its kind in the United States.

The modernization effort, which is expected to total $723.5 million by the time it and related work are complete, will include new passenger paging, air conditioning and electrical systems, as well as elevators and escalators. Workers also will incorporate truck-sized explosives-detection machines into the building's underground baggage system.

The City Council must sign off on the negotiated contract, which includes an additional $72 million for unforeseen expenses.

It will be the first major construction work in Los Angeles International Airport concourses since the Bradley terminal was built along with its double-deck roadway in preparation for the 1984 Olympics.

"The traveler is going to feel a big difference," said Valeria C. Velasco, the commission's vice president. "It's going to be safer and more secure and efficient."

The agency has worked for eight years to devise a way to modernize the Bradley terminal, which is widely criticized as being crowded, difficult to use and aesthetically displeasing. When officials began the project in 1998, the cost estimate was $80 million. Costs increased after officials decided to incorporate the screening equipment into the baggage system and to build gates for new, larger aircraft.

Commissioners expressed concern at Monday's meeting that airport staff members had reduced the amount of money in the contract to redo flooring and for interior finishes, including light fixtures, walls and ceilings, in the Bradley terminal. The panel agreed that the amount may have to be increased to upgrade the interior.

"I know we are unable to tear [Bradley] down and build a new international terminal, so we're doing a $723-million remodel," said Walter Zifkin, an airport commissioner. "At the end of spending all this money we will have new systems, new infrastructure in that building … but the look of the terminal will still not be in keeping with what I think LAX should present as the gateway to the city of Los Angeles."

About $52 million in the contract was set aside for finishes, but the money is not enough to replace the terrazzo flooring in the terminal, said Van C. Thompson, a civil engineer and the airport agency's manager for the Bradley terminal project. Officials had discussed patching the flooring's worn areas, he said.

Airport staff members said they would work with the airlines and contractors to devise a plan for the finishes and bring it back to the commission.

Commissioners also approved several related contracts Monday, including a $32-million first amendment to a contract with Parsons Transportation Group for construction management services at the Bradley terminal, for a total $46-million payout through 2010, when the terminal renovation is expected to be complete.

The commission also approved the seventh contract amendment, for $14 million, to a pact with Leo A. Daly Co. for architectural and engineering services on the terminal project, bringing the firm's total contract amount to $34.9 million.

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[Damien]

Am I the only one who thinks this is like worrying about the color of the pavement on Rodeo Drive?

How about we spend that $723 million on a people mover and Green line extension?