Piloting Airports Into Future : Manager Has Navigated Through 20 Years of Turbulent Growth

Given his love of flying, his friends say, Clifton Moore must have been a bird in some previous life--and a strong one at that.

Ask Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, who in July went on an eight-day, eight-city whirlwind trip through Europe to learn about rail systems that serve airports. She was accompanied by Moore, the 66-year-old general manager of the city’s Department of Airports.

By the time they boarded their flight home, Moore, 14 years her senior, had worn her out, Flores said. “He is the consummate traveler.”

Come October, Moore will have served as head of the department for two decades. As overseer of the city-run airports in Van Nuys, Los Angeles, Ontario and Palmdale, Moore has earned a reputation as a globe-trotter.

But he is more widely known as the good civil servant and a smart politician who has managed the department through 20 years of growth and controversy while keeping both eyes on the future.

Take Palmdale International Airport. Although it remains a home for jack rabbits rather than jumbo jets, Moore is credited with having the foresight as far back as the mid-1960s to predict the eventual need for another airport. He pushed the department to purchase 7,750 acres there, and many city officials, including Flores, are convinced that it will indeed be developed someday as the region’s other airports become clogged.

“From my standpoint, he has always been 30 years ahead,” said James Seeley, the city’s chief lobbyist in Washington.

Aware of Future

“He is not so worried about nailing down every carpet tack in the Bradley Terminal that he forgets there is a future,” said Jim Murphy, a vice president of the Air Transport Assn., an airline group.

As he enters his third decade leading the department, Moore says the problems ahead will be different from past challenges, such as the issues of jet noise, condemnation of homes near Los Angeles International Airport and roadway double-decking at LAX.

Now the major issue is how many more planes LAX should be allowed to accommodate, given the region’s worsening air capacity crunch, mounting auto traffic and other environmental problems around the airport.

“Twenty years ago, we were dreaming of things that were going to happen and when they were going to happen,” Moore said. “And, to a large extent, they have happened. If anything, we have underestimated the impact of population growth and the impact of aviation on our area.”

In coming years, he says, a new regional airport probably will be needed in Orange County, use of the Palmdale and Ontario airports will increase, and a rail line connecting the area’s airports will be needed. Even so, Moore says, the number of passengers using LAX may increase by nearly 50%.

Moore’s task is to oversee the physical plant--everything from negotiating terminal agreements with airlines to maintaining the runways. The Federal Aviation Administration is in charge of air traffic operations. His annual salary of $143,863 makes him the second-highest-paid city department head (Paul Lane at the Department of Water and Power makes $150,566).

Aviation Interest Grew

Moore said he had no intention of staying at the Department of Airports when he was hired in 1959 to oversee construction of the first jet terminal at LAX. As his interest in aviation grew, he decided to stay on.

Since becoming the department’s general manager, Moore has seen the number of employees under him grow from about 700 to more than 1,500. The passengers who pass through LAX--the third-busiest airport in the nation behind Chicago’s O’Hare and Atlanta’s Hartsfield--have more than doubled from 20.3 million a year in 1968 to 44.8 million last year. About 40 major airlines use the airport, about double the number in 1968.

Among the reasons that Moore has been able to keep on top of growth, according to those who have worked with him, are his abilities to delegate authority and win respect. Former City Councilwoman Pat Russell, who represented the airport area in the early ‘70s, when Westchester residents were angry over jet noise and the condemnation of more than 2,800 homes, said Moore “never played games trying to please the crowd in public.”

“Regardless of whether we were agreeing or disagreeing, I could always count on him to be honest,” Russell said.

Moore downplays such accolades, although he obviously is proud of his work in combatting airport noise. The FAA honored him in 1975 with its highest civilian award, recognizing his efforts to persuade airlines to use quieter planes.

Causes of Growth

Moore attributes rapid airport growth not only to the region’s population increase, but also to the boom in Pacific Rim trade in recent years. In addition, deregulation of airlines in 1978 turned the world of aviation--and airports--inside out, he said.

“It changed the industry from what it was, which was sort of a business-oriented, upper-middle-class travel network, to a real true common carrier,” Moore said.

LAX in particular has been forced to grow faster than anticipated, Moore said, largely because other airports in the region, such as Burbank and John Wayne in Orange County--which are not governed by the city of Los Angeles--imposed restrictions after noise protests. In 1987, LAX handled about 75% of the region’s air passengers, LAX planners said.

Nevertheless, Moore thinks that LAX can grow to accommodate 65 million passengers a year--a 48% increase from last year’s total. At that point, it will have reached capacity, according to airport planners. To accommodate such growth, Moore said, a number of projects--most aimed at handling ground traffic congestion--must be completed.

Just how much more LAX should be allowed to grow will be the subject of public hearings expected to begin this fall, and Moore expects people who live near the airport to call for limits.

And any attempt to limit passenger volume probably would be challenged in court by the airlines, which have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years on new facilities at the airport.

New Airport Needed

Even if LAX is allowed to handle 65 million passengers a year, Moore said, other airports still would be hard-pressed to handle traveler demand. The Southern California Assn. of Governments, a planning group, predicts that the number of travelers passing through LAX, Ontario, John Wayne, Long Beach and Burbank airports will increase more than 50% by the year 2000, from 58.3 million to 88.4 million. Moore himself predicts that by the year 2010, there will “certainly be a doubling of air passengers” in the region.

What Moore sees happening is the construction of another airport, not in Los Angeles but probably in Orange County. (Orange County officials are under a federal court order to find an airport site.)

He also sees Ontario Airport, which last year handled nearly 4.6 million passengers, continuing to grow until passenger levels reach 12 million a year. Because of poor air quality in the Ontario area, he said, further expansion of that facility is probably unlikely.

Moore also sees the gradual development of Palmdale, where three airlines once offered service until a lack of business prompted them to close down all operations by 1983. Indeed, the planning group assumes that 12 years from now, 800,000 passengers annually will use that airport.

Moore, the visionary, predicts that if air travel is to remain “demand-oriented instead of some sort of regulatory affair,” an efficient rail system linking the region’s airports must be built.

Such a system, which he concedes would cost billions of dollars and be a political nightmare, would not only give airlines more flexibility in scheduling flights, but would keep automobiles and other vehicles off highways and out of the airports.

Travelers, he said, might leave from LAX on a trip to San Francisco and return by way of Palmdale.

“People may have to be willing to accept that the voyage begins when they get to the plane, no matter where it is,” he said.