Little Airport an Air Hub for Ventura County : Transportation: Oxnard field provides only scheduled airline service in the county. But expansion is not viewed as likely.

Dena-Lynn Echiverri tapped the keys of her word processor behind the United Express counter at Oxnard Airport, printing out two tickets to Chicago.

A minute later, Echiverri, who is United’s lead passenger agent in Oxnard, headed across the main floor of the terminal, carrying the Chicago-bound couple’s luggage.

After wishing her customers a pleasant trip, she snapped on a set of ear protectors, grabbed a pair of ground-crew wands and headed for the aircraft landing area.

Two minutes later, she was frantically waving in a twin turbojet that had just arrived from San Francisco.

So it goes at Oxnard Airport, the busy little field that provides the only scheduled airline service in Ventura County.

It’s no LAX, O’Hare or Heathrow, but some travelers insist that the best way for Ventura County residents to get to Seattle, Chicago, New York, or even London, is to take one of the feeder flights that connect Oxnard with Los Angeles and San Francisco.

On a recent afternoon, the Oxnard terminal, which has appeared in several movies and TV commercials, was about half full.

Lee Melvin of Hermiston, Ore., was getting ready to board the 4 p.m. United Express flight to San Francisco, where he would transfer to a United Airlines flight to Portland.

“The travel agency suggested that I try this instead of leaving from LAX,” he said. “I figure it will save me at least two hours.”

Melanie Guzzi of Hayward, Calif., arrived from Oakland carrying her 20-month-old daughter, Clara. They had transferred at LAX to an American Eagle plane for the 15-minute flight to Oxnard.

“It worked out fine,” she said. “It saved us a lot of trouble arranging to get here from LAX. The airline took care of moving our luggage from one plane to another.”

Guzzi’s sister, Deborah Fitzgibbons, who lives two miles from Oxnard Airport, said: “We love this airport. We’ve used it to fly to Bakersfield and then to Las Vegas.

“But we hope it never gets any bigger. Right now, it’s no problem to us, but we do live nearby.”

One traveler, however, had a problem. When Matt Hackenburg, a Seabee based at Port Hueneme, arrived on American Eagle’s 1:48 p.m. flight from LAX, his luggage wasn’t aboard. Somebody had failed to transfer it from the American Airlines plane on which Hackenburg had arrived from Cleveland.

Hackenburg waited patiently, having been told that his bags would arrive on the 3:51 from LAX. They arrived as promised.

An American Eagle passenger agent, Steve Hodges, helped his wife, Carolyn, and their 7-month-old daughter, Megan, get ready to fly to San Diego via LAX.

“I’ve worked here eight months, and business keeps getting better,” he said. “We had 1,800 departures in June. That’s a record for the month.”

Although it is served by only two so-called feeder airlines, about 91,000 passengers will use Oxnard Airport this year, said Nona Makinson, operations manager of the county Department of Airports.

That represents a sharp increase over several years ago, she said. As recently as 1988, passenger traffic totaled only 31,000.

Despite its growth, the airport is hardly a threat to Los Angeles International Airport. Oxnard’s current passenger traffic amounts to less than 0.2% of the 45.8 million travelers who used LAX last year.

The Oxnard Airport, which opened in 1934, was taken over first by the Army Air Corps and then by the Navy during World War II. It’s a relatively small field, covering 220 acres along 5th Street between Victoria Avenue and Ventura Road.

“We had a dramatic traffic increase starting in August, 1989,” Makinson said. “That’s when United Express added its San Francisco flights. That single move increased passenger departures at Oxnard by 35%.”

Makinson and her boss, Marshall A. (Mac) MacKinen, the county airports administrator, expect the trend to continue, with traffic reaching about 115,000 by the end of the decade.

“We’ve sponsored a study which shows that Oxnard Airport means $38 million a year to Ventura County’s economy,” Makinson said. “Put another way, Oxnard Airport is responsible for $104,000 a day in local spending.”

In addition to its passenger traffic, the airport also handles 3 million pounds of freight and baggage annually, Makinson said.

The other county-owned airport in Camarillo brings even more dollars into the county than Oxnard, Makinson said. But the Camarillo field, a busy center for private planes and freight carriers, does not offer passenger airline service.

The passenger carriers now serving Oxnard are United Express, which is independently owned but has a working relationship with United Airlines, and American Eagle, an affiliate of American Airlines. Between them, the two lines serving Oxnard average about 30 takeoffs and landings a day, mostly between Oxnard and LAX.

A third carrier, California Air Shuttle, which connected the county with Las Vegas, Sacramento and other cities, discontinued service a year ago.

Passengers who use United Express to connect with United Airlines, or American Eagle to connect with American Airlines, can fly between Oxnard and Los Angeles at no extra cost. But the fare is prohibitive for travelers wanting to connect with other major airlines or for someone who simply wants to fly between Oxnard and LAX.