Bigger Role Urged for Palmdale Airport

Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn called on the city Airport Commission on Monday to intensify efforts to develop Palmdale Airport into an important part of Southern California’s air transportation system.

Hahn delivered his message on the eve of a commission vote to seek competitive proposals from consultants to help develop a master plan to guide development of the Antelope Valley airport for the next 25 years.

The mayor supported the creation of a master plan to attract commercial aviation to the 17,000-acre Palmdale facility, where there is none now. He also called on the city airport department to market Palmdale to airlines.

“It is clear we cannot wait for the airlines and the aviation industry to come to us,” Hahn wrote in a letter to the commission. “We have to show them how they can profitably operate at [Palmdale] and we have to do everything possible to attract the necessary passenger and shipper traffic.”

The mayor also asked that any plan for Palmdale include commercial and industrial development around the airfield, which, he said, would “serve as a potent prerequisite for new and sustained commercial air service.”

Hahn noted that it has been three decades since the city purchased the acreage in Palmdale, but the promise of it becoming a major airport has not materialized. There is one aviation tenant, SR Technics, which does airplane maintenance.

One commercial airline had shown interest in beginning service at Palmdale, but that proposal was tabled after national air traffic was reduced following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, said Nancy Castles, a spokeswoman for the city airport department.

Development of air service at Palmdale is seen as a way to reduce the necessity for Los Angeles International Airport to expand beyond levels acceptable to neighbors.