Smooth Sailing : Few Expected Holiday Headaches Materialize at Local Airports

VAN NUYS —  All preflight jitters aside, the Pasquini family of Granada Hills, bound for Chicago, took a bus from the FlyAway lot here to avoid the holiday crunch that stops cars in their tracks, clogs parking lots and turns easygoing folks into frustrated travel zombies.

Their worst fear--a glut of people choking every corridor at Los Angeles International Airport--never materialized Wednesday. It was the anticipation of trouble that had kept the family from traveling back home for the past nine years.

“This is the first holiday we’ve gone back to Chicago since we moved here all of those years ago,” Dan Pasquini said. “We were always worried about getting bumped off of our flight or having to deal with wall-to-wall crowds.”

To their surprise, ticket counters were wide open at 10 a.m., and the family had the good fortune to be assigned to Gate 41, the first one in the terminal, less that 100 feet from the metal detectors.

This was just too easy.

The crowd at LAX on Wednesday morning looked more like what you’d expect to see at the Columbus Airport than at the world’s fourth-busiest, where on an average day 125,000 people pass through its portals.

Indeed, at airports from John Wayne to Charles Lindbergh, from Los Angeles International to Ontario International, the crush of Thanksgiving holiday travelers proved more lamb than lion.

“You hear the horror stories of traveling through LAX, but when you go out and walk around, it’s just not there,” said LAX spokeswoman Diane Scully. “Yes, it’s busy--but the traffic is moving.”

A national airline association estimated that nationwide 11 million people would fly during Thanksgiving week.

Traffic at Burbank Airport, where about 15,000 passengers boarded 185 departing flights, was more manageable than ever, said spokesman Victor Gill, thanks to added parking spaces and widened traffic lanes in front of the terminal. “If anything, we’ve gotten our act firmly refined,” he said.

In Orange County, John Wayne Airport spokeswoman Pat Ware said, “Everything’s been going at a very brisk pace, but it’s also been very smooth.” One of the few emergencies among the 25,000 travelers passing through occurred when three passengers panicked after discovering they had lost their tickets. In each case, airport security officers found the tickets.

Throughout the nation, air traffic moved smoothly Wednesday, said FAA spokesman Fred O’Donnell. Only in Alaska, where snow slowed operations at Anchorage and Fairbanks airports, was weather a factor.

“What affects operations is weather, and we’ve got excellent weather virtually everywhere,” he said.

While the Pasquinis may have dodged a bullet, they had prepared for the worst.

Mary Pasquini worked until 2 a.m. cleaning house only to get up three hours later to call and ask about parking at the lot. By the time she called, the lot was full.

Plan B kicked in: Take a taxi to the airport bus service in Van Nuys.

“The lot was full by 5:15 a.m.,” said Jordan Rackerby, a security officer who has worked at FlyAway since it opened 20 years ago. And the overflow lot was itself overflowing by 6:45 a.m., he said.

Others weren’t so lucky. At the other end of the travel spectrum, the Bledy family represented a how-not-to primer in holiday travel.

They arrived at the Van Nuys FlyAway lot at 7:15 a.m., 15 minutes before their bus, to find the parking and overflow lots filled.

The Woodland Hills family of six, which was headed to Crescent City near the Oregon border, went into emergency mode, driving their luggage-filled station wagon to the first street parking space they found so they could sprint back to the station in time.

In contrast, it was smooth sailing for the Pasquinis, who arrived at LAX in 45 minutes. With plenty of time before the flight, there was time to anticipate all the fun they would have in Chicago.

“We’ve got 30 people and two 20-pound turkeys waiting for us,” Dan Pasquini said proudly. And Danny Jr., 16, would play in his first Turkey Bowl, an annual family post-Thanksgiving touch football game that has been a ritual for the past 16 years.

The family would meet a few new members, a couple of newborn nieces and grand-nieces.

Danny Jr., a teen-ager in baggy shorts and a Michigan basketball jersey, stopped to listen to Ali Reza, a representative for Community for Human Rights in Iran.

“Did you sign up?” his father Dan asked when he walked back to the family.

“Yeah, I gave him Guy’s name,” he said referring to a high school friend. “He always does it to me.”

For all the people leaving town, an equal number were arriving in Southern California for the long weekend.

Joe Kailukaitis was in the Southland on business, so he beckoned his wife and two kids from Dallas to join him for skiing at Big Bear. The family figures on eating out tonight.

Richard and Carol Hough arrived at Ontario from Santa Cruz, and loaded their rental car with sports tools for a tennis weekend in Palm Desert. They too will eat out tonight.

And Gene Bloch and his daughter, Vicki, arrived from San Francisco to join his parents for a weekend of boating on Lake Mojave, along the Colorado River north of Laughlin.

Mom’s going to cook? Think again.

“We’ll take our 22-footer downriver 25 miles,” said Nancy Bloch. “We’ve already got reservations at Katherine’s Landing.”