Regional Airports add passengers, routes despite industry downsizing. (Up Front).

A funny thing is happening in the midst of the airline industry's massive cutbacks: L.A.'s network of smaller regional airports, dominated by no-frills budget airlines, has seen modest increases in passenger numbers.

And unlike the reduction in flights at Los Angeles International Airport -- resulting in 24,000 lost seats in the last 12 months -- the smaller facilities have seen few reductions in service. There are even a few new routes being added at many of these airports.

Traffic at Burbank Glendale Pasadena Airport is expected to rise 2 percent this year, to 4.7 million passengers, but the increases are even more striking at local facilities that up until recently had struggled to attract travelers.

At Ontario International Airport, only a regional United Express route has been cancelled, while AeroMexico plans to add daily service to Guadalajara.

For the month of March, passenger traffic at Ontario was up 4 percent from the like year-earlier period and a 3 percent increase is projected this year. Last year, passenger totals fell 3 percent.

"The airport out here is like a small frog in a big pond," said Ontario spokesman Dennis Watson. "But we're aiming to make a big splash in the next couple years."

At its West Coast hub at Long Beach Airport, JetBlue is adding three daily flights to Atlanta and two more daily trips to New York's JFK Airport

One year after JetBlue's arrival, passenger numbers have shot up 71 percent, to 1.5 million. This year, airport officials project 2.1 million passengers, which would be a 38 percent jump from 2002.

There is a cap to that growth in sight, however. Long Beach is limited to 53 daily flights under an agreement between the Federal Aviation Administration and the city. By next month, when JetBlue begins its route to Atlanta, the airport will be operating at its maximum.

"We're nearing the end of our growth cycle," said Sharon Diggs-Jackson, Long Beach Airport's public affairs officer. 'At the end of 2003 we'll settle down and we won't grow nearly as fast."

Meanwhile, airlines are not cutting back in service at the smaller airports to anywhere near the level of LAX and other major airports around the country. Typically, airlines will run routes at a loss at larger airports just to stay competitive, while smaller regional airports historically have been susceptible to flights being cancelled due to lower demand.

"It's always been that airlines would keep flights just to go head-to-head with each other with little consideration to profit," said former Los Angeles World Airports director Jack Driscoll, who now works as an aviation consultant. "At regional airports there hasn't been that mentality. It's more about meeting demand and no more."

While Northwest Airlines reduced three flights out of LAX last month, no reductions have been made at Ontario. One possible explanation: Southwest Airlines accounts for nearly 52 percent of the air traffic, and unlike the major carriers, it's kept its flight schedule relatively stable since Sept. 11,2001.

When American Airlines said it would drop two LAX flights next month, it left service at Long Beach untouched. American forced JetBlue to give up four slots at Long Beach Airport so it could compete on routes to Dallas and JFK.

Another reason there could be stepped-up interest in smaller airports is the recent efforts by two of the major carriers to plan low-fare airline alternatives. Low-cost carriers often work best at regional fields. Delta Airlines this week unveiled Song, its version of a budget airline and UAL Corp.'s United Airlines announced its proposal as part of its plan to emerge from bankruptcy.

Those new airlines aren't unnerving Southwest executives.

"We'll continue to follow our business model, which customers seem to like," said Southwest spokeswoman Whitney Eichinger."