LA to give up Ontario Airport

Mayor Eric Garcetti will hold a presser in Ontario later today to announce that the city of Los Angeles is returning ownership of Ontario Airport to a regional authority in the Inland Empire, ABC7 and the LA Times are reporting. There seems to be no doubt about the report. Passenger totals at Ontario have been dropping, LA city officials are no longer the drivers of a big push for regional airports far away from LAX, and there is that lawsuit by Ontario charging LA with poorly managing the airport. The Daily Bulletin also has a story.

From Channel 7's story:

Eyewitness News has learned that a tentative agreement has been struck with Los Angeles to return Ontario Airport back to Ontario.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Ontario Councilman Alan Wapner are expected to announce the transfer of the airport back to Ontario Thursday afternoon.

Sources tell Eyewitness News that the transfer was a matter of finding the right price for an airport that has seen flights drop from 111 per day to 55 per day.

Wapner will head the newly formed Ontario Airport Authority, sources said.

Airports reporter Dan Weikel has more background in the LA Times:

The deal reverses a 30-year-old acquisition and marks a retreat from the vision of Los Angeles' airport agency as an ascending, regionwide air travel powerhouse with major branch operations in the Inland Empire and Palmdale.

The high desert airfield, once planned as a sprawling "intercontinental jetport" by L.A. officials, was never completed and was turned over to Palmdale officials two years ago.

The tentative agreement with Ontario calls for Los Angeles World Airports to be reimbursed for its investments in the facility, job protection for the facility's 182 employees and the settlement of a lawsuit in which Ontario sought to regain control of the airport.

The Inland Empire city allowed Los Angeles to operate the airport beginning in 1967 and handed over ownership in 1985 on the condition that L.A. officials do their best to attract airlines to the facility.

Personal aside: Never been there!