Let’s stick this one in the “I told you so” file. Back in June, I said, “I’m sure that the second that subsidy is gone, United is out of there.” I was right.

United started flying to Palmdale on June 7, 2007 and committed to stay for 18 months. The flights never did well, but LAWA did get United to double the number of flights. Of course, LAWA knew the writing was on the wall, because they applied for another federal grant to keep United in town beyond the 18 month point. The feds weren’t exactly supportive (PDF):

This year, 10 applications either did not meet the basic criteria for participation outlined above and were determined ineligible for selection, or the application itself was deemed incomplete. Most often, the applicant sought additional funding for the same, or essentially the same, project that was funded in a previous grant.

Yep, that’s you, Palmdale. So guess what, the last day of flights is December 6, 2008 . . . 18 months after they started. I know this source isn’t confirmed, but see if you can book the flights past December 6. You can’t, and that’s proof enough for me.

I can’t say I’m sorry about this. The only thing that bothers me is that so much money was wasted in trying to force this service to work. Hopefully now LAWA will move on and focus back on the local airports that matter.

Looks like United has given in and agreed to modify its Palmdale flying schedule. Beginning in September, instead of two daily CRJs to SFO, there will be four daily Brasilias, the 30 seat turboprop that United has slowly been phasing out. Anyone want to bet that this will work? Anyone? Bueller?

If you read my post earlier this month on the subject, you’ll know that I’ve been critical of LAWA’s efforts to pour time and money into Palmdale. And if you haven’t read the comments section, I’d highly recommend it. I apparently hit quite a nerve with someone doing work for LAWA, and it’s an entertaining read to say the least.

But my position hasn’t changed. I still don’t see this working right now. Let’s look at the fundamentals. Palmdale is in the heart of the Antelope Valley, an area that has seen rapid growth over the years because of its relatively affordable housing. But guess what? It’s an exurb, and those distant communities are taking the biggest hit in the current economic downturn. If you’d like to do a little reading, you can see this article from the LA Times in April 2007. Things have only gotten worse since then.

So it’s a probable that Palmdale alone isn’t going to be supporting major flights. There has been an effort to get people from the Santa Clarita area, the next major popular center, to use the airport by establishing bus service. Now if you don’t know where that is, it doesn’t really matter, but you can see it on the map at left. What matters is that it’s about 20 miles further to go from Santa Clarita to Palmdale than it is to go to Burbank. Even with the traffic, why would you go to Palmdale from there?

You wouldn’t. If you want to go to the Bay Area, you can fly Southwest or United from Burbank for less money and on more frequent flights than out of Palmdale. And it’s not like we’re talking LAX here. Burbank is a nice, small, and easy airport to navigate.

So can service work in Palmdale? Eventually. However, I don’t think San Francisco is going to be sustainable for a long, long time, even with more frequency. My guess is that any sustainable service at all is a few years off still at best. That’s why LAWA, the federal government, and others have had to pour $4.6m into this new service just to see if it can work. So far, the results haven’t been good.

Admittedly, the schedule will greatly improve with these new flights. Instead of northbound departures at only 6a and 11a, there will now be flights at 6a, 1015a, 1220p, and 645p. And instead of southbound flights at only 918a and 925p, there will be flights at 830a, 1035a, 5p, and 1020p. That being said, the flights will now take 18 to 33% longer on the northbound flight in the slow Brasilias. Block time increases from 1h9m to 1h32m northbound and from 1h13m to 1h26m southbound. That gives the Santa Clarita residents yet another reason to drive to Burbank.

I just have to wonder why United has decided to honor this request. They must still have a bunch of Brasilias under contract that are sitting around in the desert somewhere so they figured they’d give it a shot. All I know is that in May, the airline filled 42% of its seats. That means 42 out of the 100 seats flown each way per day were filled on average. Now there will be 120 seats in the market, and even if you can stimulate traffic by 50% because of this new glorious schedule, you’ll still only have a 52.5% seat factor. That seems quite optimistic to me, and it’s not going to cut it unless you’re getting some fairly incredible fares.

You can bet I’ll be keeping an eye on this one as time goes by. I’m heading out of town this afternoon and won’t have email access again until Sunday, so please write comments and I will approve them (if necessary) when I return.

You know I love talking about my local airports here in LA and what I consider to be a misguided regionalization strategy. Well, we’ve got some news out of Palmdale that backs me up.

Los Angeles World Airports, which operates Palmdale as well as LAX, Ontario, and Van Nuys, put in $4.6m in incentives to lure commercial service back to Palmdale airport last year. United won the bid and started operating twice daily flights from Palmdale to San Francisco on regional jets. How’s it doing?

Terrible. So far, flights are less than a third full, and I’m sure that the second that subsidy is gone, United is out of there. The airline has already tweaked the schedule, but that hasn’t helped things. LAWA has made other futile efforts to make this work, like adding bus service from Van Nuys to Palmdale. Now, why the heck would you take the bus from Van Nuys to Palmdale 50 miles away when you could go 10 miles and get to Burbank with more flights and lower fares? You wouldn’t.

So now, LAWA has a new plan. They think they need more frequent flights out of the airport. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Instead of two daily jet flights, they want four daily turboprop flights. Um, have they even talked to United about this? The only props United flies under its name right now are the 30 seat Embraer Brasilias. These are slowly being phased out, and I’d be surprised if United was looking to start new service with them.

So what should LAWA do? Look, if you need a subsidy to make a route work, it’s not a route that’s going to work. Are there people living in Palmdale that want to fly out of their local airport? Sure. But I would argue that San Francisco is not the right place to go. That means that any connection to the east is backtracking, and it’s via an airport that has terrible delay problems when the fog rolls in. I’ve always thought that a US Airways flight to Phoenix would have the best shot of success, but with fuel where it is right now, I wouldn’t expect to see anyone taking that risk.

LAWA needs to realize that people are not going to want to fly out of Palmdale unless they live in that area. It may eventually become the next Burbank, but it won’t be the next LAX. The sooner they get that through their heads, the sooner they can stop wasting money out there and start using it on upgrading LAX instead. That will have an impact on a lot more people.

If you keep tabs on press releases, you’ve probably seen the bombardment from the LA World Airports (LAWA) about a “major breakthrough in development of Southern California regional airports.” The first release went out on Friday saying that the Mayors of LA and Ontario along with other dignitaries will greet a new airline arriving at Ontario Airport today, Monday, at 11a. In case you didn’t get the first memo, they sent out reminder press releases on Sunday and another one this morning.

So what is it that’s so incredible it’s going to reshape the landscape of Los Angeles aviation? Well, not much. The big Ontario announcement is that ExpressJet is going to make Ontario its largest operation when it launches in April. That’s not really news though, because it was already announced last week by the airline. It is really nice for the people that live out that way, but I’m not convinced it’s going to do much to relieve LAX. You can still fly to most of ExpressJet’s Ontario destinations on other airlines from LAX for less money. A lot more needs to happen before Ontario can seriously relieve LAX.

Oh, but wait, there’s more. They will also announce that Palmdale airport will once again get commercial service. United Express will start twice daily regional jet flights to San Francisco thanks to more than $2m in revenue guarantees. This one was disappointing to me, because I don’t think San Francisco is the right market.

Apparently Delta also competed for the flights and they would have gone through Salt Lake City. That would have given connections throughout the country. A flight up to San Francisco makes connections to Asia or the Pacific Northwest worthwhile, but other than that, it’s not ideal. I always thought that a US Airways flight to Phoenix would give the most connecting opportunities, but they didn’t even try for the flights.

It’s time once again for the completely irregular segment I like to call random bits of info. There have been a bunch of little airline stories the last few days, so I’m just going to rattle them off here now.

• Hooray for the Brazilian courts! - It was ruled that the two American pilots being held in the Gol accident investigation cannot be held any longer. After some more interrogation and a promise to return when needed, the pilots will be free to go home. At least someone realized the gross injustice going on down there.
• Virgin Blows . . . - At least, that was the gist of the press release announcing the airline’s return to the Windy City (that’s Chicago). A daily flight between London/Heathrow and Chicago/O’Hare begins April 23, 2007. The airline used to fly from Chicago but pulled out afternoon Sept 11, 2001. I’m surprised that they’re going back, because it’s a very competitive market. American, United, and BA all fly it multiple times a day.
• . . . So Does LAWA - In the news of the lame, LA World Airports (LAWA) has announced it will rename Ontario Intl Airport to LA/Ontario Intl Airport and Palmdale to LA/Palmdale Regional Airport. Since apparently nobody knows where Ontario is (Canada?), this is the right thing to do. Actually, the Ontario renaming doesn’t bother me nearly as much as Palmdale. I mean, Palmdale doesn’t even have any flights! Do you think that airlines will start flying there just because of its new name? Lame-o.
• Lufthansa to Kick Airbus in the Nuts - Rumors abound today that Lufthansa is set to be the first major customer for Boeing’s new 747-8 with more range and more seats. This is Boeing’s competitor to the A380, and if a German airline which has traditionally ordered Airbus chooses Boeing here, it’s very bad news for Airbus.
• Does God Hate El Al? - That’s definitely a question being asked these days. Due to a general strike, El Al opted to fly on the Sabbath in order to get people home. Well, the flight to New York had rudder problems and had to return to Tel Aviv, prompting those onboard to say it was the “finger of God” punishing them for flying during the holy day. Um, ok. Now there’s a huge boycott in the works by the ultra-orthodox community, and the airline will probably be forced to sign a document saying they won’t do it again. My question is this . . . if they boycott El Al, who are they going to fly? Everybody else flies on the Sabbath. Good luck with that one.

I’m not quite sure why it is that Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa thinks that Palmdale is the answer to LA’s aviation needs. One quick look at a map will show you why it’s not going to work:

That line snaking from downtown LA to Palmdale is 70 miles long, and that’s really the only way to get out there. Any more direct route takes you through some pretty large mountains, and that’s why you don’t see much development the further north you go. Even measuring from San Fernando, just a few miles before the route turns toward the east again, you’re still 50 miles away from the airport. As a comparison, O’Hare and JFK are less than 20 miles from downtown Chicago and New York respectively while “far out” Denver airport is still only 25 miles away.

So who in their right mind would think that Palmdale would work as a good feeder airport for the Los Angeles area?

No airlines think that way. That’s why the airport has no current commercial flights. The last attempt involved Scenic Airlines props to North Las Vegas, but of course that failed miserably. In the past United Express has served Los Angeles and America West Express served Phoenix, but both have long since pulled out.

To be fair, the area is growing quickly, so I would venture a guess that it could support some regional flights to Phoenix, Salt Lake, or another western hub, but that’s going to be the extent of its success.

Unfortunately, the city of LA continues to focus on this airport as a viable alternative. Last week, the city approved a plan to request proposals for service to Palmdale. The plan includes up to $5m in incentives, including some hard cash costs that could be put to better use.

Mayor Villaraigosa said “Developing new and expanded service at Southland regional airports will go a long way toward relieving congestion at Los Angeles International Airport.” Well, the proposed regional jet flights to western hubs aren’t going to do much at all to relieve LAX. A handful of daily flights is a joke, and it’s not going to solve anything. Nobody in Los Angeles wants to fly out of Palmdale.

It’s time the city’s leaders create a plan that will expand LAX to fulfill the region’s needs in the future. Though neighbors will complain, the airport has been there much longer than they have. They should have expected airport expansion and the fact that they can prevent the region’s aviation infrastructure from expanding is mind-boggling.