The Only Way to Fly : Court’s decision bodes well for city’s higher landing fees at LAX

The U.S. Supreme Court’s affirmation Monday that local authorities have broad power to impose “reasonable” charges on airlines for use of airports offers a measure of good news for Los Angeles. But only a measure.

By a vote of 7 to 1, the court rejected an airline industry request that courts review landing charges and then reduce any fees found to be excessive. The ruling came in a lawsuit contesting higher fees imposed at the Grand Rapids, Mich., airport. The case has been watched by airport officials throughout the country--perhaps nowhere more closely than in Los Angeles, where airport officials and the airlines only narrowly averted a shutdown of Los Angeles International Airport in December over the carriers’ months-long refusal to pay higher landing fees.

The new landing-fee rate at LAX triples the old one, set under a complex, outdated formula originally created in the 1940s to induce airlines to use the then-new LAX instead of longer-established airports in the western United States. And even though LAX’s new fees remain well below those at several other major American airports, the carriers are challenging them in a federal court suit.

The federal case, pending in Los Angeles, might be dismissed in light of Monday’s ruling. In that decision the Supreme Court said that federal law carries only two clear prohibitions concerning airport fees--no per-passenger fees shall be charged and no airport-fee income shall be diverted to non-airport use.

It’s that latter finding that clouds Los Angeles’ good news. Richard Riordan, in his successful campaign for mayor last year, proposed diversion of airport surpluses to other, fiscally strapped city services or leasing airport facilities to private bidders. The prospect of diversion plainly appears dim now, both because of Monday’s decision and because of last year’s congressional reaffirmation of rules on the use of federal airport funds.

As Mayor Riordan puts the finishing touches on a long-awaited study detailing new ideas for financing city services, he clearly will have to rethink his airport options.