"Ontario, Calif.-Area Airports Lose Baggage of Sept. 11 Setbacks"

Wednesday, October 30, 2002

Ontario, Calif.-Area Airports Lose Baggage of Sept. 11 Setbacks
The Business Press, Ontario, Calif.


When are positive numbers not all that positive? 

Airport passenger numbers for September 2002 were up substantially at
regional airports compared with the same month a year earlier -- a month
industry insiders say was the worst in civil aviation history. 

"Nothing compares to Sept. 11," said John Coehlo, regional marketing
manager for Southwest Airlines Co. The terrorist attack, using hijacked
passenger airliners, was "an event of such mammoth size to shut down an
industry so huge, so quickly."

Ontario International Airport reported a 32 percent increase, processing
503,855 passengers, compared with 382,334 in September 2001, when totals
reflected the sudden drop in passenger air traffic in the wake of the
Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the three-day closure of general aviation
that followed. Despite the relative recovery from 2001, the September
2002 totals at Ontario still lag about 3 percent behind passenger volume
of September 2000, a month that saw 518,185 passengers pass through
Ontario. 

"We were fairly pleased so many people returned to flying out of Ontario
in September," airport spokesman Dennis Watson said. The surge might
enable Ontario to finish the year at the 6 million passenger mark, a
milestone the airport had achieved every year since 1992, he said. 

In 2001, prior to Sept. 11, Ontario passenger volumes were poised to
pass the 7 million passenger mark for the first time. But the year ended
at with 6.7 million, 1 percent less than the 2000 year-end total. 

"It's disappointing we couldn't see where those numbers would have
gone,"Watson said. 

Southwest, the Dallas-based discount carrier, flies the majority of
passengers to and from Ontario International Airport. 

"Things have definitely been improving, but we're still definitely
behind where we were," Coehlo said. Business traveler numbers have not
rebounded to pre-Sept. 11 levels, he said, but the reasons may be due
more to a slumping economy than security. 

Ontario airport reported a 32 percent increase in cargo traffic, which
was not as heavily hurt by the terrorist disruption. 

Passenger numbers at other airports reflected not only the havoc wrought
last September but the strength or weakness of the recovery in the year
that followed. 

Los Angeles International Airport experienced a 18.7 percent increase,
with 4.2 million passengers in September, up from 3.6 million in
September 2001 but down 28.6 percent from the 5.4 million passengers in
September 2000. Palm Springs International Airport reported a resounding
41.2 percent increase in September traffic, with 53,054 passengers
through the turnstiles compared with 37,577 in 2001, but the figures
paled against September 2000 figures when 62,382 passengers traveled
through Palm Springs. 

Allen Smoot, executive director of Palm Springs International Airport,
said the rate of recovery is about what his staff expected, but the
impact of Sept. 11 will be felt nationwide for years to come. 

"This was the first time in the history of commercial aviation that we
were shut down for three days, and people have been slow to come back,"
Smoot said. 

In year-to-date figures measuring traffic from January through
September, air passenger figures at LAX were down 13.7 percent and ONT
was down 5.5 percent compared with the same nine-month period in 2001,
according to figures released by Los Angeles World Airports, the agency
that owns both airports. Palm Springs airport, owned by the city of Palm
Springs, was down 10.9 percent. 

Palm Springs expects a significant turnaround at the beginning of the
year when airlines re-establish passenger capacity to the desert resort.
Smoot anticipates the airport's pre-Sept. 11 "growth spurt" will resume
in 2003. 

"I think we'll see the busiest busy season ever," Smoot said. 

The Coachella Valley's major airport serves "an affluent leisure
market,"a passenger segment where struggling airlines are able to make
money, he said.


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