Airport Services Provider Spreads Its Wings at Van Nuys

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Maguire Aviation, a fixed-base operator at Van Nuys Airport, is primed to get considerably bigger.


The company, owned by Maguire Aviation Group LLC, recently announced it will purchase Skytrails Aviation, a competing operator at the airport. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Fixed-base operators typically provide aircraft storage, fuel, sales, maintenance, catering, flight instruction and related services. Maguire is expected to expand its services.

The move is a significant one for Van Nuys Airport, which is home to more than 100 businesses and is the busiest general aviation airport in the country. It had just six fixed-base operators prior to the deal, including Clay Lacy Aviation and Million Air, in addition to Maguire and Skytrails.

Through the acquisition, Maguire will gain 52,000 square feet of hangar and office space on 27 acres of land.

“The purchase of Skytrails will allow us to integrate our current properties and provide the level of service only an integrated facility can provide to the customers of Van Nuys Airport and greater Los Angeles,” said Alec Maguire, president of Maguire Aviation, in a statement.

The company said it plans to invest more than $250 million in the next three years to upgrade and expand facilities.


Regionalization Woes

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other local officials last week celebrated the announcement that low-cost airline JetBlue will begin offering service out of Los Angeles International Airport in May. But the move may ultimately mean one big step back for a decades-old effort to regionalize local air traffic.

“Adding service at LAX probably retards regionalization,” said Jack Keady, an aviation consultant based in Playa del Rey. “For every new carrier that L.A. solicits and gets on board, it drives them closer to their maximum of 70 million passengers or so.”

LAX handles the vast majority of the region’s air traffic and officials have tried unsuccessfully since the 1980s to redistribute passenger service to nearby airports including Bob Hope Airport in Burbank and L.A./Ontario International Airport.

The Southern California Regional Airport Authority, a committee tasked with promoting regionalization, recently disbanded amid waning interest from neighboring counties.

JetBlue Airways Corp., based in Forest Hills, N.Y., announced last week that it will offer three daily nonstop flights between Los Angeles and John F. Kennedy International

Airport in New York, as well as one daily

nonstop flight to Boston’s Logan International Airport.

The carrier already flies out of several local airports, including Long Beach Airport and Bob Hope. The airline said it also would increase service out of those locations.

Keady said the new Los Angeles flights will likely poach passengers from nearby airports.


New Headquarters

The Port of Los Angeles this month approved a $47 million project to build a three-story, 51,000-square-foot building that will house the port police force.

Work on the state-of-the-art facility, which will include a new dispatch center and a rooftop training area, is set to begin in the spring and last for two years.

The facility will be the first new police headquarters in 25 years at the port, replacing a 4,000-square-foot center in the port administration building.

The port inked the construction contract with Irvine-based FTR International Group Inc., beating out local contractors such as Chatsworth-based SJ Amoroso Construction Co. Inc.

The project fits within the port’s “green growth” parameters, sporting a number of environmentally friendly features such as photovoltaic solar panels and water-saving features.

The port said it will be the first police headquarter building in the state to conform to the U.S. Building Council’s gold standard for environmental building.


Fake Cigarettes

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in Los Angeles last month seized more than $2 million in counterfeit cigarettes being imported from China.

Officers inspected the containers after they discovered inconsistencies in the invoices. The counterfeit Marlboro cigarettes would be valued at more than $3 million if they sold for full price.


Staff reporter Richard Clough can be reached at (323) 549-5225, ext. 251, or at

[email protected]

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