LAX watches world go by

These visitors, about 380 a day who spill out into the sunshine from Qantas Airlines flights and make Southern California their destination, stay in the area three weeks on average, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. They contribute $183 million a year to the region's economy.

Come next month, Qantas will be taking these flights, and their multimillion-dollar economic benefit, to San Francisco, although its other 42 weekly flights from Sydney and elsewhere to LAX will continue.

The move is just one example of a little-noticed shift in lucrative international air service away from crowded LAX to newer facilities in San Francisco, Las Vegas and New York. Since 2000, LAX has lost 12% of the seats on its weekly international departures, while other major U.S. gateways posted gains in service to foreign destinations.

Economists blame the shift on LAX's cramped and outdated terminals and lawmakers' inability to agree on a plan to modernize the airport while other cities have built gleaming new concourses. And newer, more fuel-efficient aircraft give carriers more choices of cities to patronize.

The trend is alarming local officials, who say San Francisco International Airport may soon eclipse LAX as the highly coveted premier gateway to the Pacific Rim. This could endanger the $4 billion a year that international visitors pump into the Southland's economy.

"Everyone assumed that LAX as a gateway would be there by the very fact that it's in L.A.," said Michael Collins, executive vice president of LA Inc., the city's convention and visitors bureau, which has received $33 million from the city's airport agency since 2001 to stimulate travel at LAX and Ontario International Airport.

"The issue that we're wrestling with is that the options for carriers -- the choices they have now -- are virtually twice as many as they had in 1995," Collins said. "The intensity of the competition has really increased."

For several decades, airlines plied international routes from their biggest hubs. Now, with the help of fuel-efficient aircraft, they're just as likely to favor smaller cities and different routes. For example, Korean Air started flying nonstop last fall from Seoul to Las Vegas, bypassing LAX. (The carrier still has LAX service.) This trend is expected to accelerate when new aircraft with longer ranges come into service in the next few years.