If You Think LAX Is Busy Now, Just Wait a Month
An intricate, two-year ballet between heavy machinery and jets plying a busy airfield debuts this month at LAX when workers start moving one of the airport's four runways.
Around midnight July 29, airport workers will paint large yellow Xs on the southernmost runway, a signal to pilots that it is closed. Then, multitudes of dump trucks, graders and excavators will roll onto the airfield, not far from where hundreds of airliners will continue to take off and land each day.
The first major project at Los Angeles International Airport in two decades aims to improve safety and prepare the airport for a new generation of jumbo jets. Work will begin just as the airport enters its most hectic month of the year, putting pilots, airlines, air traffic controllers -- and members of nearby communities -- on edge.
"I think delays will be more significant than the original forecasts," Jon Russell, a safety coordinator for the Air Line Pilots Assn., said of the $333-million project to move the runway 55 feet south -- closer to the airport's boundary with El Segundo -- and build new taxiways.
The impending mix of heavy construction equipment and commercial air traffic at a crowded airport about to lose one-fourth of its runways has officials looking for ways to head off long delays, which could trigger problems at other airports as well.
Things could get especially dicey during foggy weather or if too many planes queue up for the remaining runways. The Federal Aviation Administration recently took the unusual step of suggesting that airlines rework their schedules to cut back their peak-time LAX operations.
And LAX is experiencing its busiest summer in years, with long lines at ticket counters and security checkpoints, packed planes and routinely overbooked flights.
Airport officials say they must begin work on the project now to be ready to reopen the runway in time to handle the Airbus A380 next year. The soon-to-be-relocated runway, one of two that lie south of the terminals, is the only one of the airport's runways wide enough to accommodate the 555-seat behemoth. (The other two runways are north of the terminals. The runways south of the terminals are the longest of the four.)
"It's a tremendous safety improvement. We want to get it done as quickly as we can," said Jake Adams, runway project manager for the city's airport agency.
