Air service brings plans for Palmdale.

City and airport officials are hoping that the establishment of daily flights from Palmdale by Scenic Airlines will be the beginning of a rebirth of that city's airport which has not had commercial flights for six years.

Las Vegas-based Scenic will launch daily $75 roundtrip flights to Las Vegas beginning March 1 from Palmdale Regional Airport.

The move marks a first for Scenic, which, since its launch in the 1960s, has served only customers flying into Vegas, offering hotel and tour packages to the strip, as well as air and ground tours to local attractions, such as the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley and other Southwestern destinations.

Scenic has ticket offices in cities in 26 countries around the world including Asia, and Palmdale and officials with the Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA), which manages the airport, see the airline's pending arrival as having the potential to bring many of those same customers to tourist destinations in the Southern California area.

"We don't know exactly what the demand for flights going out of Palmdale to Vegas will be, but we do see enormous possibilities for us and Southern California for tapping into Scenic's customer base, particularly those passengers it brings in from Japan and Asian markets," said Palmdale's Mayor Jim Ledford. "Scenic has a huge presence in foreign countries and that's a lot of tourists that would normally have to book flights in and out of LAX. They see what they do in Vegas and the Nevada region as a two-way market and we all agree that eventually, the kind of operation could work very well here."

Tourists flocking to Vegas on Scenic packages could also arrange hotel accommodations and tour packages to Magic Mountain, Santa Barbara, Universal Studios and Hollywood, for example. And car rental agencies are expected to begin setting up at Palmdale to accommodate them.

"I predict within six to nine months after Scenic gets up and running that there will be a car rental agency inside Palmdale," Ledford said.

The city, Los Angeles County officials and LAWA have teamed up to offer Scenic a sweetheart of a deal to come to Palmdale: No aircraft rental fees and a well-subsidized, multi-market advertising campaign for the airline's Vegas service, set to hit radio, TV and print next month.

Because they are based on the size of the aircraft, Scenic will pay only nominal landing fees to LAWA. Flights to Vegas are expected to take about an hour.

Palmdale also has a couple of incentives for travelers: parking at the airport is free, for now, and because Scenic's planes seat fewer than 40 passengers, there are no mandatory screening requirements, including newly established rules for fingerprinting and photographing foreign travelers.

"It's a popular strategy being employed all over the country to lure in smaller airlines, says Fred Davis, president of Huntington Beach-based Tri-Star Marketing Co. He should know, he brokered the Scenic deal and he also brokered the widely popular move by JetBlue Airways to establish flights to the East Coast and other locations out of Long Beach Airport.

"This arrangement with Scenic is a wonderful example of a combination of a city, a county and an airport management team all working together to create regional airline service," said Davis. "Now we are preparing to launch a very aggressive public relations and marketing campaign for Scenic that will hit every market available."

New negotiations

News of Scenic's move into Palmdale, coupled with the city and county incentives, has begun to spread and officials are now in negotiations with Allegiant Air, which also runs custom tour packages out of Vegas's McCarran International Airport for its customers coming in from Colorado, Kansas, Iowa, Michigan and, beginning in March, Illinois.

If all goes according to plan, Allegiant will establish its first commercial service to Palmdale in 2005.

Mark Thorpe, director of air service marketing for LAWA said business travel may not be the hottest sector for Palmdale today, but because Las Vegas is a major hub city for regional carriers, such as Southwest and United airlines, he envisions executives at The Boeing Company, BAE Systems and other big aerospace firms in the Antelope Valley to consider using Scenic as a connector to destinations beyond Vegas, as opposed to making the trek to Burbank or LAX for a direct flight.

"The Scenic service to Las Vegas isn't necessarily for business travelers, but we are actually in the process of trying to quantify just how much business travel there is out of the Palmdale area," said Thorpe. "We know that McCarran is a connecting hub and focus city for Southwest, so we see some real opportunities to link in to there."

Discussions with Southwest on a possible move to Palmdale have not gone as well as city and LAWA officials had hoped. So far, the airline has no plan on its radar to set up service there. But Thorpe said meetings with the airline, as well as with Delta, Alaska and Frontier airlines are ongoing.

LAWA's long-range plans aim to make Palmdale part of a six-county regional transportation network, with long-haul and international flight service from the airport by 2015. That objective, according to LAWA's "Destination 2030" plan, call for the establishment of high-speed rail links across the region, including a rail line connecting Palmdale and LAX.

A study conducted by Tri-Star in 2002 showed Palmdale could draw roughly 1.5 million airline passengers a year from Santa Clarita, parts of the San Fernando Valley, and areas across the entire Antelope Valley.

The last commercial carrier operating out of Palmdale was United Express, which pulled service in February of 1998. Because the airport once served that airline, as well as America West and SkyWest, it's essentially ready for business, give or take a few weeds on the runway, and capable of handling as many as 50 flights a day.

"Basically, Palmdale is ready to go," said Tri-Star's Davis. "All you have to do is put the key in the door and turn the handle."