Scores of businesses at Santa Monica Airport have launched a campaign to head off the planned closure of the airfield at the end of 2028.
Flight schools, aircraft maintenance shops, nonprofit organizations and even a business incubator would all be displaced if the century-old airport closes. Most businesses would try to get space at other local general aviation airports such as Van Nuys Airport or Hawthorne Municipal Airport, though many of those airfields are already at or near capacity.
Some of those businesses held a news conference earlier this month to draw attention to their plight, hoping to urge city officials to reverse course and keep the airport open.
“This airport is home to some 100 companies with 1,000 employees who report here every day to work,” said Ben Marcus, chief executive of Spirit of Santa Monica, the nonprofit formed with the aim of keeping the airport open beyond 2028. “We have companies building startups that are building technologies for land, air, sea and space transportation.”
Battle over airport
Marcus also pointed to a recent Spirit of Santa Monica-commissioned poll that showed two-thirds of registered voters in the city favored keeping at least part of the airport open past 2028, while only 25% favored a complete airport closure as of Jan. 1, 2029.
However, hundreds of residents near the airport have pushed for decades to shut down the airport, citing jet aircraft noise and safety concerns. Those safety issues were spotlighted in 2015 when actor Harrison Ford was injured in a crash on a nearby golf course of a World War II-era single-engine plane that had suffered an engine failure.
Under terms of a 2017 agreement between the city and the Federal Aviation Administration, the airport must remain open through December 2028. After that, the city has the option to close the airport.
City officials are now working under the assumption that the airport will indeed close, and all leases will terminate as of Dec. 31, 2028. They have moved beyond the shutdown debate and are considering alternative uses for the 215-acre parcel, including a massive park or a housing development.
No place like Santa Monica Airport
Yet the business owners said that even if they can find other airport locations, none will offer the advantages of Santa Monica Airport.
“There’s nothing like being at Santa Monica Airport,” said Natasha Jai, owner of the Santa Monica Flyers flight school. “People love to be here – being by the beach and the weather. It’s a community that can’t be replicated elsewhere.”
Closure of the airport would also impact the non-aviation community, according to Eve Lopez, a volunteer pilot with Angel Flight West, which provides free air transportation for people in need of non-emergency medical care. The service also transports blood and other crucial medical supplies.
Lopez said many of the people she flies in and out of Santa Monica Airport are treated at UCLA hospitals in Santa Monica and Westwood.
“There is no other airport as close or convenient for that huge patient pool,” she said. One of the other nearby airports, Van Nuys, “is so congested I’ve had to wait 40 minutes just for a takeoff or landing slot. At Santa Monica, we usually get priority status.”
Even businesses that don’t directly fly aircraft in and out of Santa Monica Airport would be impacted. A handful of those are housed at the UP.Labs incubator run by UP.Partners, which is headquartered just off the airport runway.
UP.Labs helps energy, logistics and aviation-related businesses grow, said Sid Shah, the incubator’s president. UP.Labs works closely with established companies in these industries to launch and grow new companies, he added.
Shah said being right next to the runway is a huge advantage.
“We have CEOs of companies fly in and walk a few steps to our lab,” he said. “For the industries we serve, it’s so on brand to be on a live runway.”
If Santa Monica Airport closes, Shah said the incubator would try to get into Hawthorne Municipal Airport, where Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, still maintains some operations.
