Runway Job at LAX Will Affect 390 Daily Flights

More than 340 flights will have to be rescheduled and 50 canceled altogether during the reconstruction of one of the four runways at Los Angeles International Airport, officials said Wednesday.

The general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Airports, Clifton Moore, reported the flight changes to the Board of Airport Commissioners at their weekly meeting on Wednesday, but said later that he had no further details.

Rebuilding of crumbling Runway 24 Left, which is expected to begin in mid-February and take about four months, had been expected to reduce airport capacity. But it was unknown until now how many of the average 1,800 daily flights would be affected.

The effect on individual airlines seems to vary.

Everyone Will Suffer

“Unfortunately, everyone is going to suffer while the runway is being repaired,” said Joe Selman, spokesman for American Airlines, which will have an as yet undisclosed number of flights canceled or shifted to other airports such as Ontario International and John Wayne in Orange County during the reconstruction.

Airline spokesmen said certain carriers such as Eastern, for example, which has 13 daily flights at the airport, would be little affected, with no cancellations and only minor schedule changes, while other carriers, such as PSA, which has 124 flights out of LAX, will have to temporarily cancel about 17 flights and reschedule about 80.

Eastern Airlines regional manager Colin Gates said the impact on its flights will be “very minor. We have made a couple of minor arrival and departure changes . . . no more than 15 or 20 minutes.”

But for PSA, nearly half of whose flights arrive at or depart from LAX, “it has an impact,” spokesman Jeremy James said. “One of the ways we market ourselves is high frequency of service, especially between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Anytime that changes it’s something we’d rather not do. But it’s temporary, only as long as the reconstruction lasts.”

The actual plan for handling the disruption caused by the runway project was developed by the airlines themselves, according to Elly Brekke, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration’s Western Pacific Region.

“They determined who would take the cuts and what flights could be rearranged. It was a group cooperative effort,” she said.

Will ‘Balance’ Flights

A citizen at Wednesday’s airport meeting expressed concern that the rescheduled flights will negatively affect residents of Westchester, which borders the northern runway. But Moore said the FAA had agreed to “balance” the flights equitably among the other three runways.

“They plan to schedule away from peak periods,” airport spokeswoman Virginia Black added.

The estimated cost of the runway’s reconstruction is $11.8 million. Airport officials said the amount is based on a four-month completion date, which they had insisted on to reduce the impact on airline traffic. Black said the cost would have been about $400,000 greater if they had allowed the rebuilding to take six months or more.