Long Beach Airport

The City Council Tuesday formally approved an ordinance that ties expansion of Long Beach Airport to airlines' compliance with strict guidelines for noise. The ordinance, approved 7-0 with council member Edd Tuttle absent, says that the number of daily commercial flights can be expanded on a quarterly basis from the current 18 to a maximum of 32.

A twin-engine plane crashed and skidded off the runway while aborting a landing at Long Beach Airport Saturday, injuring four people and temporarily closing two of the airport's five runways. The pilot and three passengers were only slightly injured in the accident, which happened at 1:06 p.m. when the Piper Apache was coming in for a landing behind other aircraft.

In reading your April 5 story "Quieter Skies, Emptier Airport," I couldn't help but feel that we the residents of Long Beach are being deprived of the convenience and access to the airport because of Mike Donelon and his friends. How selfish! They knew when they purchased their homes in the vicinity of the airport what they were doing--or did they? I suggest they sell and move to a more pleasant and rural surrounding like San Luis Obispo. The airport is very important to me, why should I drive to LAX (Los Angeles International Airport)

Thousands of gallons of firefighting foam were accidentally released Thursday in a Long Beach airport hangar, covering a police helicopter and other vehicles with fizzy bubbles. A technician inadvertently set off the firefighting system, and minutes later the hangar was filled to the ceiling with foam, Long Beach Fire Battalion Chief Frank Hayes said.

Following a first phase that is 98% leased, Kilroy Industries has launched the second phase of the $250-million, 52-acre Kilroy Airport Center/Long Beach at Lakewood Boulevard and the San Diego (405) Freeway in Long Beach.

Long Beach Airport's cramped 1940s-era terminal would be modernized and expanded by about 60% under a plan approved by the City Council. The overhaul, which would include adding three gates and two aircraft parking positions, would help the airport accommodate about 4.2 million passengers annually after its anticipated completion in 2011, officials said, up from the 3 million it handles now.

A new helicopter service began daily scheduled flights out of the Long Beach Airport last week. L. A. Helicopter Inc. received a one-year city permit to operate its passenger and freight service from Long Beach to Los Angeles International Airport--the first helicopter service with scheduled flights in Long Beach, according to the company's president, Gordon J. Myers.

Martin Chandler leaned back against a beige wall on an observation deck and watched the sun melt into the horizon. He was waiting to catch a flight. At most other urban airports, the Long Beach real estate broker would have to fight traffic and long lines at ticket counters. He would be sequestered in some stuffy waiting room and then disappear into one of the jetways that extend like so many octopus tentacles from satellite terminals. Not at Long Beach Airport.

On a clear day, the new office tower under construction in the Kilroy Airport Center offers a breathtaking view. To the south and west, cars cruise along the San Diego Freeway. They are framed against the soft round curves of Signal Hill and the hint of blue Pacific horizon. To the north and east, the flat plain of suburbia reaches for miles to the San Gabriel Mountains.