Letter: Costs keep travelers away from Bob Hope

Re: “Passengers on the descent at Bob Hope Airport,” June 7. Seems as though every couple of weeks there’s an article in the News-Press decrying the decline of ridership from Burbank Airport. It is just a matter of time and money (and time being money, which means it’s just about money).

Our son will be flying home from San Francisco to L.A. next week. A round trip, nonstop ticket from SFO to LAX on Expedia is $374. The flight takes about 1 hour, 30 minutes. A round trip, nonstop ticket from SFO to Burbank is $647 and it takes about 1 hour, 20 minutes. The nonstop flight is a rarity, though. Most of the flights have one (Phoenix!) or two stops (Phoenix and LAX!). These flights take upward of five hours. One might as well drive. So instead of picking him up in Burbank, a 20-minute drive, we will drive to LAX — a lot farther, a lot more traffic and aggravation.

This is only one route, but I’m sure the problem with flying into Burbank is the same no matter what the destination. Unless airlines are willing to fly into Burbank more often, offer more direct flights, maybe fly smaller planes and offer discounted fares, ridership will not go up. Could the airport lower airport fees temporarily as an incentive to attract more flights and thus increase ridership? On the other hand, if more flights came to Burbank, would there be more opposition from the residents in the surrounding neighborhoods?

Carmen Blume
La Crescenta