Not long ago LA/Ontario International Airport was setting growth records. Airlines flocked to the Inland Empire airfield in what Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa hailed as the "great first steps" to regionalizing air travel in Southern California.
In a much publicized event last year, the mayor even helped welcome the start of an airline's service at Ontario by donning a safety vest and directing an ExpressJet plane to its gate.
Come September, ExpressJet will no longer operate at Ontario, becoming one of the latest casualties of high fuel costs and a souring economy, which have grounded airline service across the country. Other domestic airlines, such as United, Delta, Southwest and JetBlue Airways, have slashed or eliminated service at Ontario as well.
As a result, no airport in Southern California has been hit as hard by the aviation fuel crisis and downturn as Ontario. It is bracing for a 34% drop in flights from last fall's numbers, irking travelers and frustrating promises by politicians to shift some service away from congested Los Angeles International Airport.
Officials for Los Angeles World Airports say Ontario and LAX are being severely affected because they are neither hubs nor headquarters for major domestic airlines. When economic times are bad, they said, airlines concentrate flights at their hubs to save money and to take advantage of their established markets.
The hits come at a time when the Inland Empire is already suffering from the slowdown in the state economy and a meltdown in its once-booming housing industry because of the subprime loan crisis.
The cutbacks are "going to make it worse for us. We'll have to fly from LAX, and the lines there are 10 times worse," said Bob Surane of Thousand Oaks, coach of the Combat Panthers, a high school girls' traveling softball club from Ventura County that regularly flies out of Ontario to tournaments.
On Friday, Surane and members of the Panthers were waiting to check in at the ExpressJet counter for a flight to Tulsa, Okla. He said the team likes Ontario because of discounted airfares and the convenience of getting in and out of the terminals.
Philip Geurin, a student at Pitzer College in Claremont who flies home to Tulsa between sessions, said he too was disappointed by the decline in service.
"I love ExpressJet," he said. "They had pretty good fares and I could fly home nonstop. I am going to have to find another way."
