Clearance Given for Airport Ad Campaign

In hopes of attracting more summer tourists, Burbank Airport officials voted Monday to spend about $165,000 for billboards and radio ads aimed at luring air travelers away from Los Angeles International Airport.

The advertising campaign, which was approved unanimously by the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority, will begin this month and extend until June. It will include nine billboards and 480 radio spots that will air 80 per week on three radio stations.

Although most of the billboards will be located in the San Fernando Valley to attract travelers within a few miles of the airport, two billboards will be placed on Sepulveda and Century boulevards to target travelers leaving LAX. The 60-second radio spots will be aired on two Los Angeles news stations and an adult easy-listening station.

The billboards and radio spots will attempt to sell the airport as a trouble-free alternative to LAX by recycling slogans used in a previous billboard campaign, including: “Why Drive Over The Hill?,” “LAX jammed . . . Use Alternate Route,” and “Burbank Airport: Up Close and Personal.”

The billboard campaign launched two years ago cost about $109,000 and was considered by airport officials to be partly responsible for a 26% increase in passenger volume between fiscal 1989-90 and 1990-91. The beginning of service at the airport by Southwest Airlines in April, 1990, also contributed heavily to the passenger increase.

This year, a media consultant recommended that Burbank Airport extend the campaign to include radio spots for the first time. The airport already advertises in several local newspapers and magazines.

Victor Gill, the airport’s director of public relations, said the campaign will not only promote Burbank Airport as a more convenient alternative to LAX, but will also take advantage of billboard rates that are lower than normal due to the continuing recession.

“We feel comfortable that we are putting our name on the street at just the right time,” he said.

During the airport authority meeting, Gill said he hopes the campaign will help make up for the loss in passengers the airport expects from the withdrawal of Delta Air Lines. Last week, the airline canceled its two daily flights to Salt Lake City.

In February, Delta flew 5,668 passengers in and out of the airport, a 25% increase in passengers over the same period last year, according to a monthly Burbank Airport passenger report.

The planned advertising campaign was criticized by Tom Paterson, a North Hollywood resident who heads a group of homeowners who want to limit the airport’s growth and reduce aircraft noise. The group, East Valley Airport Impacted Communities Coalition, has criticized a plan to build a new terminal about four times the size of the current terminal.

Paterson said the money should be spent on sound-proofing homes adjacent to the airport and not to attract more passengers, and thus more flights.

“This is just a reaffirmation of what we’ve been saying, that they are committing money to create a passenger base that isn’t there now,” he said, adding that airlines should pay for the advertising.

Burbank Airport has continued to outpace LAX in increasing passenger volume, on a percentage basis. In the first two months of 1993, Burbank’s passenger volume increased 6.28% over the previous year, while passenger volume at LAX for the same period increased by only .7%, according to monthly passenger reports from the two airports.

LAX continues to serve more than five times as many passengers however, 3.2 million in January and February of this year, to Burbank’s 591,000.

In other matters, the authority voted to spend about $88,000 for new carpeting in front of ticket counters and along hallways in the east terminal, known as Terminal A. The project will be completed within the next two months.

The new carpeting will be in use for only three to five years because the airport authority approved a plan last month to build a new, larger terminal on the northeast corner of the airport. The new terminal is scheduled to be operating by 1998.

Airport Services Director Thomas Greer said the new carpeting is desperately needed to replace 3-year-old carpeting that is falling apart and will not last until the new terminal is built.

He said the airport authority has decided that it does not want to let the current terminal deteriorate and will continue to make improvements to the terminal until it is replaced.

“It has to be done to keep a certain level of customer service,” Greer said.

Another improvement approved recently is a 2,500-square-foot valet parking center that will house a valet ticket office and provide shelter for customers waiting for their cars. The $400,000 project is expected to be completed in June or July.