Airport Project Has Baggage

With its porthole windows and Art Deco lines, Long Beach Airport evokes a bygone era when white-gloved stewardesses wore hats and meals were served on china.

Now that 9/11 has made air travel an ordeal, Long Beach passengers boast they can arrive an hour before takeoff. NBC’s Katie Couric called it “really cool” during a “Today” show segment on how to dodge congested airports.

Yet its virtues are vexing Long Beach Airport. And the once-overlooked airport is buckling under its success.

Just four years ago, Long Beach Airport had only 15 commercial departures a day, with more planes filled with cargo than people. Since JetBlue Airways made Long Beach its West Coast hub in August 2001, the upstart carrier’s cheap fares and the ease of getting in and out of a pipsqueak airport have proved a winning mix.

Daily commercial flights increased to the 41 maximum allowed by the city’s airport noise ordinance. The number of passengers soared from half a million in 2001 to 3 million last year. By contrast, John Wayne Airport in Orange County handles 130 commercial flights a day and Los Angeles International Airport handles about 900.

And Long Beach Airport is struggling to keep up.

To handle the increases in travelers and security demands since the terrorist attacks, the city says the airport terminal must expand.

The proposal has divided the city.

Business leaders, led by the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce and JetBlue, want a modernized airport terminal of up to 133,000 square feet that offers more amenities. They argue the airport has long failed to take advantage of business opportunities such as concessions that would crank up tax revenue for the city. (Fewer than 1% of the airport’s 3 million passengers stayed overnight in the city last year, their studies show).

But residents who live around the airport fear the terminal project will lead to challenges or outright breaking of the noise ordinance.

“It’s about time we decide to look out for people who live in this city,” said Rae Gabelich, a new Long Beach councilwoman who opposes airport expansion.

The existing terminal is a city historic landmark, which means even its color cannot be altered without the approval of several commissions, which almost nobody expects. The upgrades and additional space would go in stand-alone adjacent buildings.

The soonest that the Long Beach City Council could decide on proposed improvements is March. Yet the ground war has begun.

JetBlue and the Chamber of Commerce would prefer the largest of several upgrade alternatives, at roughly 133,000 square feet. Some residents favor a smaller expansion. And the City Council voted Feb. 8 to limit the scope of the environmental impact report to an expanded terminal of 103,000 square feet. The existing terminal is about 58,000 square feet, including 23,750 square feet of temporary facilities.

Now, some airport backers are talking about letting voters decide the matter through a ballot measure. That would essentially be an end run around the City Council and would eliminate the environmental review process, which has stoked the airport growth debate.

It is an echo of what transpired in Orange County several years ago, where voters went to the polls repeatedly over the county’s plans to build a commercial airport at the closed El Toro marine base. That proposal also divided the community, with residents who live near the base finally winning out when voters approved a plan to use the base for homes, businesses and recreation.

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Gleaming white outside and sky blue inside, the Long Beach terminal today is not much different from what it looked like when it was built in 1941.

The exterior has the fluid horizontal lines and steel ship railings that are signatures of the streamline Moderne architectural style still seen in parts of Long Beach.

Vivid blue mosaic floor tiles depict the city’s aviation and waterfront history; they peek out from under carpeting at the terminal entrance but are in full view upstairs, where there are dated restrooms. They share the second floor with airport operations offices, a single worker at a JetBlue computer and the old air traffic control tower.

Down a short hall are the Prop Room restaurant and bar. An outdoor patio allows passengers to smoke or dine al fresco overlooking the tarmac. Quarters are intimate, and the walk from terminal to plane is outdoors, just like baggage claim.

“It makes you want to say, ‘Here’s lookin’ at you, kid,’ ” passenger John Shmoldas of Thousand Oaks said, quoting a line from the movie “Casablanca” as he lingered over dinner at the neon-lighted bar.

The airport’s vintage appeal is the antithesis of most modern airports and has earned praise both from travelers and the national media.

“I travel around the country a lot,” said Tom McGovern, a national sales manager for a Seattle company that sells products through Sprint, “and this airport is very old-fashioned and unique. It is just so much easier than most other airports.”

Patricia Laurans, a dog show judge from Newtown, Conn. who travels extensively, said she would do almost anything to avoid flying out of LAX, “which I hate,” she said.

“I love Long Beach,” Laurans said. “Now, would I like it if there were more room here [in the boarding area] and covered places to get on the plane? Sure, but would I trade how easy it is to get around here and JetBlue? No way.”

But with the influx of additional flights and passengers have come growing pains.

Federal security screeners work in rows beneath tarps. The winding path from the main airport terminal to the boarding area, referred to by one airport official as the “dog run” before pleading it not be mentioned, is open to the elements from about the knee down.

A portable building serves as the plane waiting area, where a staffer sells snack foods and beverages. The lone baggage claim carousel is outdoors under an awning. Passengers are fully exposed to the elements as they walk on the tarmac between the terminal and jetliners.

The Prop Room bar has 11 stools and no other seating. There are few bathrooms, and those upstairs are unreachable by the disabled. There is a small snack bar and smaller gift shop, where nothing more electronic than batteries is sold.

Amid the Spartan surroundings, the Chamber of Commerce and others see opportunity for business to bloom, from concessions to other sales tax generators for the city. In this picture, Gabelich and other foes see the opportunity for a crack in the door to get pried into an opening for more expansion than Long Beach residents need or want.

Opponents fear that a larger terminal and room to grow on the airport site will invite either other airlines to challenge the city’s noise ordinance or the Federal Aviation Administration to decide to direct planes from larger, overcrowded airports to Long Beach.

For its part, the FAA says that is not about to happen. “We respect the 41-flight cap,” said FAA spokesman Donn Walker.

As the city debates the future of the terminal, some travelers said they would welcome improvements. “I feel like we’ve stepped out of a time machine,” Bob Rigo of Chino said with a grin as he and his wife and daughter dashed through the terminal. It took them 45 seconds. “Where’s Ricky and Lucy?”

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Taking off

Long Beach airport facts

* The first transcontinental flight landed in Long Beach in 1911.

* The world’s first flight school opened in Long Beach in 1919.

* In 1923, the new Long Beach Airport became the first municipal airport in Southern California.

* The airport is one of the world’s busiest airports for private aircraft.

Source: City of Long Beach