Big days for LAX

Monday is a big deal over at the airport - it's groundbreaking for the Bradley West project, which will greatly expand the congested international terminal with two new concourses and additional gates and shops. It marks the first new terminal construction since the 1980s and could spark renewed interest among foreign carriers that up to now have been frustrated at the lack of gates and the tight terminal space. Financing the project has been a challenge both because of a still-tight credit market and because passenger traffic is likely to stay flattish for quite a while. There's also the debt service on those airport bonds. "This is not the time for the faint of heart," said Los Angeles World Airports head Gina Marie Lindsey at Emma Schafer's Los Angeles Current Affairs Forum. Meanwhile, tomorrow comes the release of a long-awaited study on what to do with the north airfield, which some say should be moved further north to accommodate bigger planes. Neighbors have been up in arms about that prospect, so the NASA Ames Research Center was brought on to make its own independent evaluation.