CAMPAIGN FOR AIRPORT UNDER WAY AMERICA WEST WOOED FIRST.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

PALMDALE - Nearly a year after the events of Sept. 11 thwarted a previous marketing effort, Palmdale Regional Airport supporters met with America West representatives in the first of what is expected to be a series of sales pitches to attract an airline.

A delegation that included Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford and Philip Depoian, deputy executive director for government and external affairs for the Los Angeles World Airports, met with America West officials in Phoenix on Wednesday.

The meeting was intended to provide the airline with potential customer information and to show community support for airliner flights into and out of Palmdale.

``We met with them and made a presentation on behalf of the Palmdale airport,'' Ledford said Thursday. ``It was a good trip. They were receptive to the information.''

America West officials made no commitments, Ledford said.

America West planes flew out of Palmdale from January 1990 to September 1991 before pulling out of the market because of rising fuel prices during the Persian Gulf War and the nation's recession. The airline had flown passengers from Palmdale to Las Vegas and Phoenix.

Although the airline industry is still reeling from Sept. 11, Ledford said Palmdale Regional Airport supporters believe there are still business opportunities and that Palmdale service would fit in with America West's other service in California.

Through its America West Express operation, run by Mesa Air Group, the airline has a number of regional routes in California feeding into its main Phoenix hub. America West Express operates out of Bakersfield, San Luis Obispo and Monterey, among other cities.

In September 2001 the cities of Palmdale and Los Angeles were about to launch an extensive marketing effort on behalf of the airport when the terrorist attacks on New York City and the Pentagon sent the airline industry into turmoil and brought the marketing effort to a halt.

In a study commissioned by Los Angeles County, the consulting firm Tri-Star Marketing stated Palmdale can support a profitable passenger service linking the Antelope Valley with western cities like Las Vegas, Dallas, Denver and the San Francisco Bay Area.

The market area from which the Palmdale airport could draw - about 600,000 people, taking in Santa Clarita as well as the Antelope Valley - is large enough to produce 1 million to 1.5 million airline passengers a year, the report added. Airports in comparably sized markets average 26 jet flights and 18 commuter flights daily, the report said.

Tri-Star identified five airlines most suitable for the Antelope Valley: America West, Delta Connection, United Express, American Eagle and Horizon Airlines.

Palmdale Regional Airport is composed of a terminal and parking lot on land leased from the Air Force inside Air Force Plant 42, but the last airline pulled out in 1998.

Under an agreement with the Air Force, Los Angeles World Airports - the city of Los Angeles' airport department - can run 50 flights daily out of Palmdale using Plant 42's taxiways and runways.

The agreement includes provisions to expand the number of daily flights to 400.

LAWA also owns 17,000 acres immediately east of Plant 42 that is earmarked for an airport. The city of Los Angeles began acquiring the land in the 1960s in anticipation of building an airport in Palmdale, but the airport has never been built.