LAX to Discontinue $3-Per-Ticket Fee : Travel: Officials say capital-projects charge is no longer needed. Consumers will save $60 million a year.

Los Angeles International Airport will stop collecting a $3-per-ticket fee it has been charging departing passengers to fund capital projects, the Los Angeles Department of Airports said Tuesday.

The change will save passengers $60 million a year and will take effect with tickets issued starting Jan. 1, the agency said.

Since 1992, the Federal Aviation Administration has allowed airports to seek permission for imposing the “passenger facility charge” to pay for airport improvements and additions. The fee is usually added to the ticket price and collected by the airlines.

The fees were to go toward building a “people mover” at LAX, building another terminal at Ontario International Airport--which the department also operates--and for programs aimed at reducing noise at both airports.

But the people-mover project is still under review, and “better strategic planning” and more efficient management of LAX has eliminated further need for the charge, said John J. Driscoll, the airports department’s executive director.

Ontario, however, will continue collecting its $3-per-ticket fee. (The Burbank airport also charges a $3 fee, but the other two Los Angeles-area regional airports in Long Beach and Orange County do not.) The airports department has collected more than $168 million in PFCs and interest on the fees, and most of the money will go toward the $300-million Ontario terminal whose construction began in October, officials said.

The agency said LAX--the nation’s fourth-busiest airport--is the first airport in the country to stop collecting the fee.