Ontario International Airport (KONT) looks awfully lonely

BY CASSIE MACDUFF

Published: 02 May 2012 06:24 PM

When my plane landed at Ontario International Airport on Monday afternoon, the twin terminals were a picture of desolation.

A single United Airlines jet was pulled up to a gate at the far west end of the terminals; a single US Airways jet, at the far east end.

Between them: eerily, gate after empty gate.

I stared from the window of my Southwest flight as we bumped along the taxiway and pulled up to a gate in the lonely middle.

Every time I fly out of or into ONT, I am struck anew by the airport’s decline. As Ontario Councilman Alan Wapner says, if something doesn’t change soon, there won’t be an Ontario airport.

It’s hard to say whether the city’s efforts to regain control from Los Angeles can succeed. The harder local-control proponents push, the more Los Angeles World Airports digs in its heels.

Last week, a candidate for Los Angeles mayor — former federal prosecutor Kevin James — issued a strongly worded opinion piece in favor of transferring control of ONT to a regional authority.

He’s considered a long-shot candidate. But maybe the frontrunners — LA Controller Wendy Greuel and Councilman Eric Garcetti — will take the hint. As James points out, it’s in LA’s interests for Inland residents to use ONT: 1.3 million fewer cars on LA freeways if people aren’t driving to LAX.

The Inland airport doesn’t seem to be on the radar of the current mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa. He’s got bigger fish to fry in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere, apparently.

On Monday, LAWA put out a cryptic news release saying ONT’s general manager, Jess Romo, will “effective immediately” report to LAWA’s chief operating officer to “align (his) expanded duties.” Meaning what? LAWA officials didn’t respond to my calls on Monday.

Roma used to manage ONT. Then LAWA added Van Nuys Airport to his duties. He now divides his time between the two airports.

That was a big clue that LAWA considers ONT unimportant. For decades, ONT had its own manager. Now it shares one with another secondary LAWA airport where the locals are also unhappy with LAWA’s stewardship.

I caught up with Romo recently when he was in San Bernardino, and asked him about efforts to bring airlines back to ONT. He mentioned cost-cutting steps such as reducing the frequency of parking shuttles and closing a remote parking lot for a savings of $2 million a year.

That hasn’t stemmed the bleeding of passengers and flights, which have been in a steady nosedive since 2007, now down to 1987 numbers.

When I departed ONT five days earlier, I noticed all three exit-lane booths for the on-site parking were staffed, even though no cars were exiting. With so few customers, why not save two salaries by staffing only one booth? I wanted to ask Romo. But I couldn’t reach him Wednesday afternoon.

Meanwhile, James pointed out that LA could focus its attention on improving LAX if it gave up control of ONT. It has an offer from Ontario on the table: $50 million for LA’s general fund. Why wait for the situation to get even worse?

Source:  http://www.pe.com