Explanation for Cut in LAX Fees Asked

Mayor Tom Bradley has called on airport officials to explain why $7.4 million in increased parking revenue at Los Angeles International Airport is being passed on to airlines as reduced landing fees.

Airport officials said Tuesday that they were surprised by the request, since the mayor’s office endorsed the parking rate increase last year and did not object when the Airport Commission--appointed by Bradley--approved the lower landing fees last month.

“I am sure he understands it, but he wants me to explain it one more time,” said Clifton Moore, executive director of the city’s Department of Airports. “People are concerned, and they are entitled to an explanation. But the explanations have been made before, and they will be made again, and they basically won’t change.”

Moore said a longstanding agreement between the Department of Airports and airlines at LAX gave the city no choice but to reduce the landing fees from 63 cents to 26 cents per 1,000 pounds of landed weight. The agreement requires the airport to pass on surplus revenues to the airlines, which, in turn, guarantee airport bonds and cover any airport losses, Moore said.

“When times are good, they benefit, and when times are bad, they pay,” Moore said.

Airport parking rates were increased from 33% to 100% last December in an effort to discourage long-term parking in lots near the airport and to encourage car-pooling and use of mass transit.

Jerald K. Lee, the department’s director of administration, said most of the cut in landing fees is not attributable to the new parking rates. He said the new landing fees reflect a $16.7-million surplus this year--more than half of it from unexpected rental car and concessions revenue and savings on salaries, supplies and services.

Deputy Mayor Mark Fabiani acknowledged Tuesday that Bradley approved the new parking rates and did nothing to block the lower landing fees, but he said the mayor was surprised that airport officials did not spend some of the surplus parking revenues on other projects. Under the agreement with the airlines, the airport can avoid passing on surpluses to the airlines by simply spending the money.

“In recent months there has been a growing movement in the mayor’s office to determine how best to allocate scarce city resources,” Fabiani said. “It is clear that as the airport grows and becomes more profitable, it is going to become more and more important as the city becomes increasingly strapped for resources.”

Lee said the agreement with the airlines does not allow the department to use the surplus money for construction projects, such as a new terminal. “We feel an obligation to run the airport as efficiently as we can,” he said. “We are not going to just spend money to spend it.”

Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, who represents the LAX area, said the airport needs to renegotiate the agreement with the airlines, which officials say is at least 40 years old and expires in 1992.

“This should be a good time to make sure we get a new landing agreement that never puts the city in this idiot position again.”