With support for the expansion of Los Angeles International Airport stalling out, political and business leaders throughout the region are rushing to take advantage of the opportunity to push for expansion of outlying airports.

From Palmdale to Ontario to former U.S. Air Force bases in the Inland Empire, airport boosters are riding the new regional airport policy wave, lining up marketing studies and preparing to woo airlines and cargo carriers to their airfields.

“Right now there is a tremendous amount of excitement up here,” said David Myers, North County regional manager for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp., speaking of plans for a regional airport in Palmdale. “There’s a feeling that our day has finally come after 30 years of boosterism.”

The upshot of having regional air traffic capacity spread throughout several airports, rather than concentrated at LAX, is that more airport-related contracts will be forthcoming.

“This regional approach is going to put a lot of people to work,” said the new L.A. City Council President Ruth Galanter. “You’ve got a dozen airfields here that will be looking at expansions, and each one will need its own urban planning and engineering firms.”

The “regional approach” has emerged as a near certainty as political support for the massive LAX expansion plan has almost totally collapsed over the last six months, as elected officials and regional associations have one after another abandoned the envisioned $8 billion-to-$12 billion megaproject.

First the L.A. County Board of Supervisors, then the candidates for L.A. mayor, then the Southern California Association of Governments, and finally, earlier this month, most of the Southern California congressional delegation all came off the sidelines to openly oppose the LAX expansion plan.

What’s more, new Council President Galanter has been one of the staunchest opponents of LAX expansion. That, combined with a new mayor likely to be less friendly to the expansion, will undoubtedly mean the appointment later this year of airport commissioners with considerably less enthusiasm for the multibillion-dollar project.

But perhaps the biggest blow came last month when SCAG approved its Regional Transportation Plan with a policy decision to cap the number of annual passengers at LAX over the next 25 years at 78 million, well below the 90 million annual passengers called for in the airport expansion project. (About 65 million passengers currently pass through LAX each year.)

Adhering to this cap would lessen the need for a new western terminal complex and accompanying ring road, two of the essential and costliest elements of the proposed airport expansion.

The SCAG plan, touted as a blueprint for the region’s growth, is viewed as crucial for prioritizing which projects should get federal and state funds. Outside funding is essential for any airport and related infrastructure expansion.

Added to this is the fact that no regional leadership has emerged to boost the project in the face of localized opposition.

In its place, a single mantra is emerging: look at expanding outlying regional airports first: Ontario, Palmdale, Burbank, John Wayne Airport and the former military air bases of El Toro, George, Norton and March.

And this has galvanized airport boosters in all of these areas.

“Ontario stands to be a huge winner out of this new policy,” said Ontario City Councilwoman Debbie Acker, who has long pushed for more flights out of Ontario International Airport. “We can accommodate both additional cargo and passenger traffic.”

Airport boosters like Acker are looking ahead five to 10 years and seeing more dollar signs for their communities as increased airport traffic leads to more development and jobs.

Windfall for consultants

But in the near term, the biggest winners are the marketing and aviation consultants being hired by city and airport officials at these various airfields. These are firms like Tampa, Fla.-based Tri-Star Marketing Inc., which two months ago completed a marketing study for a proposed Palmdale Airport, or Simat, Helliesen & Eichner (SH & E;), a Boston aviation consulting firm that just analyzed the potential of flights out of Ontario to Vancouver, British Columbia. The firm also advised SCAG in drafting its regional aviation models.

Further down the line, engineering firms could get a piece of the pie as plans for these various airport expansions enter the design phase.

But that doesn’t mean smooth sailing for each of these proposed expansions or conversions. The most controversial outlying airport project remains El Toro in Orange County. The battle between northern Orange County residents favoring an airport and southern county residents opposed to it has raged for eight years. It has seen four voter initiatives and numerous court fights.

For most of the other proposed airport expansions, though, local opposition is scant. The bigger roadblock is the cool reception by the airlines, which have largely centralized operations out of LAX. The airlines have generally been reluctant to move flights to these other airports, citing concerns over ground access and low passenger counts.

Courting the airlines

Overcoming this is a major focus of regional airport boosters.

“Right now, the main task is to convince the airlines to look at Ontario,” said Mary Jane Olhasso, economic development director for the city of Ontario. “We’ve got to convince the airlines that they can make a profit by locating here.”

Olhasso said she was at a recent meeting where an official with Los Angeles World Airports, which owns the Ontario facility, made a presentation to the airlines.

“He couched his presentation by saying, ‘Look, we’re not certain how much LAX will be able to expand,'” she recalled.

But, Olhasso said, the airlines took a wait-and-see attitude. “They want to see more data before they decide.”

But some businesses aren’t waiting for the data and are banking on the increasing likelihood of regional airport development.

North L.A. County economic development advocate Myers pointed to two new Marriott International hotels and a Best Western hotel that have sprung up on the offramp of the Antelope Valley (14) Freeway heading towards the small airstrip known as Palmdale Airport.

“Anticipation of the growth of Palmdale Airport is a major factor why they chose to locate there,” Myers said.

Yet many are still skeptical about the viability of Palmdale. They say it’s simply too far away and too hard for most Angelenos to get to without some major highway improvements or a high-speed rail link.