This article has been revised and corrected from the original version.
Last year, the divergent passenger growth trajectories at the four airports serving Los Angeles County came into full relief.
Two of the airports – Ontario International and Long Beach – posted double-digit surges in passenger counts last year, pushing them to all-time record highs. Hollywood Burbank Airport saw 9% growth last year and came quite close to its all-time record high two decades ago.
Meanwhile, passenger growth at Los Angeles International Airport slowed dramatically during the year and remained 13% below pre-pandemic 2019 levels. As a result, the
airport slipped from the nation’s second-highest passenger tally in 2019 to fifth last year.
On the air cargo front, overall tonnage at these four airports rose nearly 3% last year and was up about 2.5% from pre-pandemic 2019.
These are just some of the findings from a Business Journal analysis of passenger and cargo statistics at the four airports and how the tallies compared with other major airports across the country, using data supplied by the governing authorities at the various airports.
In all, 94.4 million passengers went through terminal gates at the four L.A. area airports last year, up 3.4% from 2023. The growth rate declined from the 13% level recorded for 2023 as the recovery from the pandemic more or less played itself out. Thanks to the sluggish performance at LAX, the total passenger count for the four airports was still nearly 9% below pre-pandemic 2019, when the total soared past 100 million.
Meanwhile, Southwest Airlines Co. maintained its position atop carriers serving the region’s airports. The Dallas-based carrier was responsible for 16.7 million passengers going through terminal gates at the four airports last year, virtually unchanged from 2023. Gains in Long Beach and Ontario were offset by drops at LAX and Hollywood Burbank.
Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines Inc. was next at 15.5 million passengers going to and from its planes at the four airports, while Fort Worth, Texas-based American Airlines Group Inc. and Chicago-based United Airlines Inc. rounded out the big four with 13.2 million and 12.8 million passengers, respectively.
Soaring outlying airports
Long Beach Airport was the biggest percentage gainer in passengers last year with a 10.9% increase to 4.15 million passengers. That pushed the airport into record territory for passenger tallies.
“We’re delighted that more passengers chose Long Beach Airport in 2024 than during any time in our more than 100-year history,” said Airport Director Cynthia Guidry.
In an airport with strict limitations on the number of flight slots, Southwest has emerged as the dominant carrier in recent years, filling the void left by previous dominant carrier JetBlue Airways, which exited the airport in late 2020 after failing to win permission to launch international service. In 2023, Southwest picked up slots from Delta and American.
“Southwest is aggressively using all of their slots – much more so than JetBlue did, and with larger planes,” said Ben Mutzabaugh, managing editor of New York-based travel news and advice website Points Guy.
Ontario International Airport was a close second, with a 10.2% increase in passengers last year to 7.08 million, just shy of the all-time high in 2005 of 7.21 million.
The airport returned to local control in 2016 after several decades as part of the airport system run by Los Angeles World Airports, the Los Angeles agency that runs LAX. Since then, the airport has aggressively marketed itself both to Southern California residents and to overseas travel coordinators.
The airport also has lower landing fees than LAX, making it more attractive to airlines, Mutzabaugh said. The fee of $2.14 per 1,000 pounds of aircraft gross landing weight is less than one-third the fee at LAX.
“Airlines are more willing to take a chance on Ontario because it’s comparatively cheap to fly there,” Mutzabaugh said.
Hollywood Burbank Airport’s 2024 passenger tally hit a record high of 6.55 million.
Mutzabaugh noted the recent arrival on the scene of Houston-based startup Avelo Airlines Holdings Inc., which chose the airport as its first base of operations and launched flights there in April 2021.
“When a budget carrier like Avelo comes into an airport, it not only adds its own flights, but because other airlines must lower their prices to compete on key routes, they also attract more fliers,” he said.
Passenger growth stalls at LAX
At first glance, the 2% passenger growth rate last year at LAX appears modest, though hardly problematic. But a closer look reveals a tale of two halves: In the first half of the year, the growth rate was a respectable 4%, led by a nearly 14% increase in international passenger traffic. But the second half of last year there was a 1% drop in domestic passengers, while the growth in international passenger counts was only 3%. As a result, the overall passenger growth rate for the second half was 0.19%.
Mutzabaugh pointed to a confluence of factors hindering air travel at LAX. First and foremost, he said, has been an array of inconveniences on the ground facing travelers to and from the airport that is undergoing billions of dollars’ worth of construction projects. These include congestion around the terminal loop and walks of a mile or more for luggage-toting passengers seeking rideshare pickups.
The airport’s comparatively high landing fee of $6.50 per 1,000 pounds of gross landing weight – although down nearly 50% from pre-pandemic levels – is still much higher than any of the other airports serving Los Angeles County and higher than other airports such as Denver International and Dallas-Fort Worth International. Airlines at LAX several years back agreed to the higher fees to provide the principal funding for the billions of dollars in modernization and ground access improvement projects now taking place.
“Where this comes into play for the airlines is whether they choose to create hubs at LAX,” Mutzabaugh said. “Yes, it’s a huge market and almost every airline will have at least some flights there, but when it comes to establishing a hub with connecting flights, the high landing fees may convince them to site that hub elsewhere.”
He cited American Airlines increasing its Dallas-Fort Worth International hub connections and Southwest increasing hub connections at Denver International. Neither has increased hub connections at LAX recently.
Los Angeles World Airports’ new chief executive, John Ackerman, formed a unit this past summer to combat the downward trends in flights and passengers. Also last summer, the agency quietly shelved plans for two new terminals. Terminal “0” would have been added onto the current Terminal 1 (Southwest Airlines), while Terminal 9 would have been an entirely new structure on airport property east of the landmark light pylons.
Cargo growth returns to normal
A total of 3.24 million metric tons of cargo moved through the four airports last year, though 98% of that total was at Los Angeles International and Ontario International.
The year-over-year growth rate of nearly 3% was in stark contrast to the 14% drop in air cargo in 2023 compared with 2022 as cargo volumes back then were still reeling from global supply chain shocks and inflation.
