Carol Hallett, president and chief executive of the lobbying and legal arm of the nation's major air carriers, didn't mince words in delivering a scathing indictment of the Palmdale solution to the future of air transportation in Los Angeles County. In short, Palmdale Regional Airport can no longer be ignored to death. Palmdale must now be attacked at the highest levels by the biggest guns, lest long-suffering nearby neighbors of the old bus station called LAX rally to the relief Palmdale Regional really offers. The verbal missiles Hallett aimed at Palmdale are not new, nor are they devastating or even well-aimed. The thing about airlines, it must be understood, is that they really don't like airports all that much.
More airports mean more ticket counters, and that means more people on the airline payroll.
If all the flights in Southern California could be consolidated at a vastly expanded Los Angeles International, the airlines already there could do more with less - something air travelers can see firsthand on most flights. But what airlines see as good for their bottom lines may not be so good for either the L.A. County region or the traveling public. Now, it would seem, we have even larger foes. Perhaps next the Department of Airports will bring in as surrogate gunslinger the Airline Pilots Association to explain why pilots would rather circle the terminal in a doubly-crowded sky over LAX than get a quick clearance into Palmdale Regional. That would be wonderful indeed.