Welcome News for Air Travelers

It may be a small step, but the announcement that a subsidiary of Swissair will soon open a maintenance facility at the now idle Palmdale Regional Airport is welcome news.

Sixty congested freeway miles from central Los Angeles, the high-desert airport had been considered too remote to warrant development. Just last year, a study said that Palmdale Regional, which, like Los Angeles International and Ontario International airports, is owned by Los Angeles, could attract and accommodate at most 7 million passengers a year, not enough to make a significant dent in LAX’s 60 million annual passengers.

But 7 million passengers sounds pretty substantial here in the San Fernando Valley, where Burbank Airport serves fewer than 5 million passengers a year--and noise-weary neighbors don’t want it getting any bigger.

Mayor Richard Riordan agrees that Palmdale has promise, and last October got behind a plan to expand and market the airport. Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford, who just may be the only elected official in southern California who actually wants an airport in his city, is heading a working group that’s updating the airport’s development plan, including looking for ways to improve freeway and rail access.

The Palmdale airport could provide desperately needed regional relief. And a regional plan is exactly what the Los Angeles area needs.