Doubts Greet Forecasts for Regional Airport Use

Regional planners are forecasting huge increases in passenger traffic at Burbank and Palmdale airports over the next two decades, but others say the projections may be unrealistic.

A forecast by the Southern California Assn. of Governments says Burbank will double from 4.7 million passengers last year to 9.4 million in 2025. But that presumes construction of a new terminal--a project that has been stalled since the early 1980s.

Palmdale will serve 1.7 million passengers by 2025 under the SCAG scenario. But Palmdale has dropped from 43,800 passengers in 1991 to zero since April 1998, when United Airlines shut down its operations there, citing lack of business.

“That may be a little bit aggressive,” Jack Kyser, chief economist of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., said of the SCAG forecast.

Hasan Ikhrata, SCAG’s manager of transportation planning and analysis, conceded that the Palmdale projection assumes massive growth in the Antelope Valley--and airline willingness to serve that market.

“The airlines are not going to go anywhere where there is not a market,” Ikhrata said.

The Palmdale airport is owned by the city of Los Angeles, which has long hoped to turn it into a major commercial facility--without much luck.

“Palmdale has been a difficult one to call,” said Jim Ritchie, deputy executive director for long-range planning for Los Angeles World Airports. “We were so confident here at the airport [that] we bought 17,000 acres” in the 1970s to develop the airport. Most of that land is still vacant.

To attract passengers at Palmdale, SCAG planners foresee a regional airport with high-speed rail service, free parking and discounted airline tickets. It also assumes the area will triple in population and draw more industries with high-paying jobs during the next 25 years.

SCAG, which represents six Southern California counties, tries to forecast for aviation demand for as many as 12 regional airports as part of its larger Regional Transportation Plan, said Rich Macias, manager of aviation and environmental planning.

In an effort to decentralize commercial air traffic in the region, SCAG’s Transportation Committee has recommended a plan that would limit LAX to 78 million passengers a year, then try to distribute the other 90 million expected passengers equitably across the region.

The Burbank Airport forecast assumes construction of a larger passenger terminal, and that bigger planes will fly out of the airport--with more of them will filled to capacity.

But the terminal project has been stalled over concerns it will add too much noise and traffic, and the existing terminal probably cannot handle the growth forecast by the SCAG study, said Burbank Mayor Stacey Murphy.

“Everybody is going to use those numbers,” said Murphy, a member of the SCAG regional council, “and I just don’t believe those numbers are realistic.”

Burbank City Manager Robert “Bud” Ovrom agreed. “It poses a political problem for us because it is going to scare people,” he said. “There is simply no basis for believing that those numbers will come true.”

He said he expects the SCAG predictions to be used by Burbank airport expansion opponents to garner support.

But airport spokesman Victor Gill said the projections are supported by historical trends.

“Over the next 2 1/2-half decades, doubling one’s passenger base is certainly consistent, even on a conservative basis, with what has happened historically,” Gill said.