Airports’ Growth May Spark Booms

The end of the battle to build an international airport at El Toro is likely to spur greater booms in Ontario, the nearby Inland Empire, San Diego and perhaps neighboring Tijuana as well.

That’s where public officials and businesspeople were looking Wednesday to find future alternative airport space to accommodate Southern California’s growing population and global businesses.

Their mission is critical. Failure to develop alternative airport capacity will severely imperil the region’s economic growth, which is heavily dependent on international trade and travel.

Such failure will allow other cities, such as Phoenix and Las Vegas, and other ports, such as Seattle and Oakland, to take away international traffic and business.

“We’ll be forced to deal with expanded passenger and cargo traffic in inadequate facilities and have the worst of both worlds,” says Peggy Ducey, chief executive of the Southern California Regional Airport Authority.

“Airports bring in and ship out the computer parts, medical instruments and other high-value goods that are the hallmark of this region’s economy,” says economist Steven Erie of UC San Diego. Today’s airport facilities add more than $120billion in annual business to the $250billion in economic activity generated by trade through the seaports of Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Diego.

But it is hard to overstate the economic multiplier effect of airports because they play such a central role in business travel, tourism, mail delivery and speeding of cargo.

That’s why it was good news for Ontario International Airport, the Inland Empire, San Diego and Tijuana that planners focused on their potential to fill part of the gaping need left by the end of El Toro’s proposed airport.

El Toro was to have handled up to 30million passengers and 1.7million tons of cargo annually two decades from now, providing a partner for Los Angeles International in Southern California’s future development.

El Toro’s portion was to be a key part of the area’s total growth to 186million passengers and 9.5million tons of cargo in 2025, from today’s totals of 96million passengers and 3million tons of freight.

Now the Regional Airport Authority, organized last year to implement a plan for the region’s airports in 2025, is counting on other proposed sites.

The need for additional capacity has grown acute because LAX’s long-term growth is now effectively capped at 78million passengers, up from 61.6million last year--a total depressed by the recession and the aftermath of Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Future restrictions on commuter flights to LAX from Orange and San Diego counties are probable so that larger aircraft and more international flights can be accommodated.

That means that Ontario Airport will expand greatly with traffic from Orange County.

In all likelihood, Ontario will add a third runway in the next decade as it grows to handle 30million annual passengers and 2.2million tons of cargo--up from 6.7million passengers and 462,000 tons of freight last year.

Ground transportation will be improved to serve an expanded Ontario Airport, notes Ducey of the Regional Airport Authority, which was set up last year by Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) and Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe.

An off-site terminal at Anaheim that would handle passenger and luggage check-in and security inspections before a bus trip to Ontario is being planned. A new post-Sept. 11 master plan for LAX will feature a similar terminal east of the airport for check-in and security.

The end of El Toro will mean a shift of development to the “western areas of the Inland Empire, near Ontario Airport,” says John Husing, an economist with expertise on that region. “This will bring companies and executives to the area,” Husing says, noting that expensive houses are already being constructed to accommodate home buyers driven to the Inland Empire by housing shortages in Orange and Los Angeles counties.

Freight companies, including Airborne Freight, Federal Express and Evergreen, are now looking at former Air Force bases turned into airports in San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

The companies had been waiting to see how the vote on El Toro turned out.

The region’s southern areas--San Diego and southern Orange County--will need a new airport now that El Toro is canceled. San Diego’s 2.8 million population will rise to 4 million in the next two decades and the area has growing needs for shipping cargo.

“San Diego now uses LAX for 45% of its annual cargo,” says economist Erie.

A new San Diego County regional airport authority is looking at proposals for an expansion of Lindbergh Field, near downtown San Diego, and for a joint use airport at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station. Also the authority is considering Rodriguez Field in Tijuana, Mexico, which could be expanded, with a check-in terminal on the U.S. side of the border.

It will take work and a sense of urgency throughout the region, but the end of El Toro could spell the beginning of serious economic development for other parts of Southern California.

*

James Flanigan can be reached at jim.flanigan@latimes.com