Commuters Taking Wing.

A FORTUNATE FEW ARE USING PRIVATE AIRPLANES TO BEAT FREEWAY TRAFFIC

A recent report revealed what most local motorists already knew firsthand - Angelenos are enduring ever-longer, more expensive and frustrating commutes. But a few executives are managing to rise above it all. Literally.

They have taken to commuting to work by airplane. These executives, most of whom live at least 75 miles from their workplaces, manage to chop at least an hour off their commutes each morning by taking to the air.

"I've tried every route to get to and from work by car -- they all stink," said Jeff DeLiberty, marketing manager for Silgan Containers in Woodland Hills.

DeLiberty, who lives in Trabuco Canyon in southeastern Orange County and started his job at Silgan earlier this year, "plane-pools" with co-worker Bob Owen, who owns and pilots a four-passenger, single-engine plane.

Every morning, the pair drive from their homes to Orange County's John Wayne Airport, hop aboard the plane for the 20-minute flight to Van Nuys Airport, then get in another car and drive the final seven-mile stretch to Warner Center. Every evening, they do it all in reverse.

Including the short drive at each end, the trip typically takes DeLiberty and Owen between an hour and 90 minutes each way, about an hour less than the freeway drive from Orange County to the San Fernando Valley during rush hour.

"In the plane, it's really a rush to look down on all that traffic and realize you're flying above it all," DeLiberty said.

DeLiberty and Owen are part of a small cadre of executives who have taken to the air, usually after their professional life has shifted from one part of Southern California to another. While they want to further their careers or plunge into new ventures, they don't want to give up their homes or uproot their children from good suburban schools.

"When you look at these really long-distance commuters, those who travel 100 miles or more each way, the search for alternatives to crowded freeways becomes intense," said Jill Smolinski, spokeswoman for Southern California Rideshare.

A division of the Southern California Association of Governments, Southern California Rideshare released the report two weeks ago on the lengthening commutes that Angelenos face.

"Some just give up and move, or switch jobs again," Smolinski said. "But these flying commuters show just how creative people can be in finding ways to avoid rush hour."

Of course, it helps if you're a licensed pilot with your own plane, like Owen. And you must both live and work reasonably close to an airport -- or the whole point of flying into L.A. every morning can be negated once your plane lands.

Furthermore, you are also more subject to the whims of the weather: Fog or rain can completely shut down a small municipal airport, forcing flying commuters back into their cars for even longer-than-normal highway commutes.

That's probably why it is still a small select group of commuters who choose to fly their own planes to work every day.

Bob Trimborn, airport manager at Santa Monica Municipal Airport, said, "Out of the 300 takeoffs and landings we have each day, maybe a half-dozen or so are regular commuters."

Most of these, he said, come in from the Inland Empire or the High Desert.

While time, not money, is the motivation for most air commuters, there is at least a little cost savings for some.

Bob Souza, an Allstate Insurance Co. agent who has his own insurance office right next to Van Nuys Airport, has flown to work almost every morning for the last four years. He takes his single-engine Piper-Cherokee from a small airport near his ranch in Tehachapi, on the edge of the Mojave Desert halfway between Lancaster and Bakersfield. The 63-mile flight takes about 25 minutes.

"The aviation fuel costs about $2.25 a gallon. In my plane, I only bum about eight gallons of fuel an hour, which amounts to about $8 one way for fuel," Souza said. "When I drive, it's five gallons each way, or between $9 and $10 one way. Also, there's a lot less wear and tear on a plane in the air for half an hour at a time than on a car driving 102 miles each way in stop-and-go traffic through mountains."

"I don't usually need a car at the other end, which really cuts down on the time and expense of commuting by plane," Souza said. "Most of my clients come to my office. And if I really need to go somewhere, I can borrow a car from one of my staff."

For others, regardless of the cost, an unanticipated change of circumstances can make commuting by air the best of all possible options.

Steve Hammerslag, chief executive of Hollywood-based J2 Global Communications, and his vice president of marketing, Tim Johnson, both live in San Diego County and once worked together at a San Diego firm called SureTalk.com.

But this past January, Hammerslag sold SureTalk to Hollywood-based J-Fax.com, which was then renamed J2 Global Communications. Suddenly, both Hammerslag and Johnson found their painlessly short commutes transformed into a potential three-hour daily nightmare.

For Hammerslag, who has flown since he was 22 and has owned his own plane for several years, there was never any question about how he was going to get from his home in Rancho Santa Fe to Hollywood, 110 miles away.

"While most of my flying until now has been for pleasure, I quickly realized, in this situation, the only practical way to make it work was to fly," Hammerslag said. "If I couldn't fly, I don't think I could do this job."

(Hammerslag, who says he absolutely hates driving in rush-hour traffic, briefly considered taking the Amtrak train from Oceanside and connecting to the Metro Red Line at Union Station in downtown L.A., but quickly gave up on the idea when he learned that would take about three hours each way.)

Of course, there are short-hop commuter flights from San Diego's Lindbergh Field to Burbank Airport or Los Angeles International Airport. But that's more expensive and time-consuming than flying your own plane.

Hammerslag opted instead to fly his Cessna 340 six-seater out of less-crowded Palomar Airport near Carlsbad to Burbank. He also offered to take Johnson -- who doesn't have a pilot's license -- with him.

Like Owen and DeLiberty, Hammerslag and Johnson each drive to Palomar Airport in their own cars (Johnson lives nearby in Carlsbad), then use a car at the other end to get to their jobs in Hollywood.

"It's that 10-mile drive from Burbank Airport on the Hollywood Freeway through the Cahuenga Pass that's really the killer," Johnson said. "It often takes as long to drive from the airport to Hollywood as it does to fly from San Diego to L.A."

In fact, that nine-mile drive can take 30 minutes or occasionally even 45 minutes in very heavy rush hour traffic, putting it right on the edge of canceling out the time saved by flying.

That is partly why Hammerslag and Johnson only commute to work two or three times a week, most often on Monday and Wednesday mornings. The rest of the time, they stay overnight at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, across the street from their office.

For Souza, as with Hammerslag and Owen, flying is a lot less stressful than following taillights on overcrowded highways.

"I don't arrive burnt-out from the commute," Souza said. "In fact, it's really quite refreshing."

What's more, Souza said, by shaving two or three hours off his commuting time each day by flying, he can usually get a week's worth of work done in just four days.

Souza's proximity to Van Nuys Airport also affords him another advantage that few other L.A. businesspeople can match: the ability to hop in his plane for a long lunch break in Santa Barbara. That is only a 45-minute flight each way.

"It really impresses the clients," Souza said.