Bradley in Europe to Pitch L.A. Tourism : Trip: Mayor leads 10 city officials, at public expense, to London, Paris and other spots. As they promote LAX, others back home question the cost--and whether the busy airport needs the exposure.

Mayor Tom Bradley has been visiting London and Paris this last week as part of a 19-day trip through Western Europe designed to lure foreign tourists to Los Angeles.

The mayor is leading an entourage of 10 city officials--at public expense--on a promotional tour that will include stays in Italy, Germany and Monaco. Their tab is being picked up by the city Department of Airports, which is paying $185,000 in lodging and planning costs plus transportation, food and other expenses to be determined later.

Councilwoman Ruth Galanter criticized the cost of sending so many city representatives to visit Europe at one time.

“It has not been my experience that Los Angeles is hurting for overseas visitors,” Galanter said when contacted last week by The Times. “This just doesn’t seem like the most urgent use of everybody’s time.”

Galanter, whose district includes Los Angeles International Airport, said her constituents are fed up with the congestion, pollution and jet noise created by too many passengers. She urged officials to use “the same kinds of resources and forethought that are put into these trips” to solve the environmental problems around the airport.

Deputy Mayor Mark Fabiani said that although trips to exotic places by public officials are “easy targets” for criticism, they are vital to the Los Angeles economy. A study three years ago found that Los Angeles International Airport generated more than $28 billion annually in local economic benefits.

“The mayor is one person in the city who realizes that the world is changing fast and Los Angeles is not always going to remain at the world’s economic center,” Fabiani said. “As a result, he has aggressively pursued business around the world.”

Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores agreed in an interview that efforts to promote and maintain a thriving tourism industry are important to Los Angeles. But she also questioned whether the airport needed to send 10 officials to Europe at public expense.

The trip was organized by the privately financed Greater Los Angeles Convention & Visitors Bureau as a “European Sales Mission” to help make Los Angeles a top travel destination. The visitors bureau paid for five of its own executives to make the trip.

The final leg will be a five-day stay in Monaco to attend the 30th annual conference of the International Civil Airports Assn. Bradley and others attending the seminar will consider ways to control airport congestion and improve baggage collection, said Bill Chandler, the mayor’s spokesman.

The city officials joining Bradley are mayoral aide Philip DePoian, City Council President John Ferraro, all five airport commissioners and two airport managers. Some of the officials will join Bradley later.

Ferraro defended the trip, saying before departing Thursday that sending the mayor and a council member overseas to promote Los Angeles “carries more weight than just some staff people.”

One of Bradley’s goals “is to do everything in our power to make sure people choose Los Angeles,” Chandler said. “Through his personal appearances and media interviews, the mayor will likely reach tens of millions of people throughout Western Europe.”

However, “passenger promotions per se” are no longer sponsored by the Airport Department because the city has surpassed a City Council-imposed limit of 40 million air travelers per year, said spokeswoman Nancy Niles. Since 1988, Los Angeles International Airport has exceeded the capacity by 5 million travelers annually.

“We are at a level of passenger use at this airport where it wouldn’t make sense to encourage it more,” Niles said.

Whereas boosting passenger travel to Los Angeles is the function of the visitors bureau, the airport uses these trips primarily to generate more air cargo business, said the airport’s executive director, Clifton Moore, whose own travel plans to Europe were sidelined by illness.

The mayor’s schedule includes black-tie dinners with leading tour operators in London, Paris and Frankfurt, West Germany, meetings with foreign dignitaries and receptions for cargo officials. He also has numerous media interviews ranging from the newspaper Le Figaro in Paris to an evening television talk show in Rome to tout Los Angeles as a popular tourist destination.

The trip comes at a time when Bradley, whose finances and business ties are under federal investigation, routinely refuses to conduct interviews on controversial topics with reporters in Los Angeles.

On Wednesday, Bradley held sit-down interviews with three newspapers at St. James’s Club, the exclusive residential estate in London where he stayed last week. Chandler said Bradley will submit to “dozens” of newspaper, radio and television interviews over a two-week span--more than the approximately 20 interviews he gave in Los Angeles during a 10-month period last year, according to the mayor’s appointment calendar.

Although Bradley granted a telephone interview from London last week to discuss his role in keeping the Raiders football franchise in Los Angeles, he did not have time last week to answer questions about his European travels, Chandler said.

The mayor agreed to travel to Europe at the invitation of the visitors bureau, said Michael Collins, vice president of public affairs. “The mayor gives us a certain drawing card that lets the cameras turn on and reporters pay attention to our delegation,” he said.

It was in response to concerns about jet noise, air pollution and traffic congestion around the airport that the City Council in 1981 imposed the passenger limit. But at the same time federal aviation regulations require the city to accept all airline operators who want to land at Los Angeles International, said Maury Laham, manager of airport environment.

“We are caught in the middle,” he said. “We try to do our level best to reduce the impact we make and still accommodate aviation.”

City officials said they have been studying a proposed master plan that would allow the airport to expand its facilities to handle 65 million passengers by about the year 2000.

Bradley recognizes the need to expand airport facilities to accommodate growing numbers of air travelers, Chandler said. “As the passenger levels increase, the airport will have to take even greater steps to reduce noise and handle passenger congestion,” he said.

The airport commissioners who are accompanying Bradley on parts of the trip are Samuel Greenberg, Robert Chick, Melanie Lomax, Diane Pasillas and Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., who heads the panel.

With Bradley out of town, Ferraro served as acting mayor until he left for Europe on Thursday. Marvin Braude, the council’s president pro-tem, left for Japan on Friday, leaving the acting mayoral duties to Councilwoman Flores for most of the time Bradley is away.