Passenger traffic at OIA falls to record lows

Proponents of local control of Ontario International Airport have more ammunition with which to battle the airport’s owner, the city of Los Angeles: passenger traffic at the airport dropped dramatically during 2013.

A total of 3.9 million foreign and domestic passengers used the airport last year, an eight percent drop compared with 2012, according to data released Monday by Los Angeles World Airports.

In comparison, total passenger traffic last year at Los Angeles International Airport grew 4.7 percent, including a year-to-year jump of nearly five percent in domestic passengers, according to World Airports, usually known as LAWA..

Those numbers are disappointing but not surprising to anyone familiar with World Airport’s management of Ontario International during the last 10 years, said Frank Williams, executive director of the Ontario Airport Alliance.

“Maybe I should be surprised, but I’m not,” said Williams, whose organization was formed to wrestle control of the airport away from World Airports and into local hands. “It’s all about marketing, and this points to the fact that LAWA hasn’t been marketing the airport like it should.

“You have to give people reason to use the airport, and they haven’t been doing that.”

World Airports, a Los Angeles city agency, owns and manages Ontario International, Los Angeles International and Van Nuys Airport.

Both sides agree that passenger traffic at Ontario International has dropped badly during the past decade – 2013 was reportedly the first time since 1985 that the traffic count there fell below four million – but they don’t agree on the cause.

Officials with World Airports blame the recession, which they say has cut into air travel and forced airlines to cut back on flights. The airport alliance, however, has accused World Airports of deliberately moving marketing and other resources away from Ontario International and into Los Angeles International, which the city of Los Angeles sees as the more prestigious of the two properties.

The fight has become particularly bitter. Last year, Inland economist John Husing, a fierce proponent of local control of the airport, said World Airports “should burn in hell” for its management of Ontario International during the past 10 years.

Last June, Ontario filed a lawsuit against World Airports that tried to change the terms of the 1967 agreement that gave control of Ontario International to Los Angeles. In December, both sides agreed to put the lawsuit on hold and resume negotiations, but neither has indicated progress toward an agreement.