Update on Palmdale Airport

       This is an update on our earlier post If You Can’t Build It, They Won’t Come, dated October 2, 2008. It tells the story of how Los Angeles blew $100,000,000 around 1970 to acquire some 17,000 acres of land in the high desert near Palmdale, for what it modestly called the Los Angeles Intercontinental Airport. It never got off the ground, you should pardon the expression. Check it out.

       Now, the Los Angeles Times reports that the Los Angeles Airport folks have finally given up. They have transfered the operation of the Palmdale Airport, to the City of Palmdale which will now run it and try to make something of it. Dan Weikel, Palmdale to Run Troubled Airport, L.A. Times, Nov. 12, 2008, at p. B3.

       We learn from the Times article that since 1971 no less than eight airlines have tried to make a go of using the Palmdale airport, but none succeded. This in spite of the fact that in the latest try, United Airlines was receiving subsidies from the city and federal governments amounting to $230 per passenger.  But it appears that the feds have come to their senses and have refused to renew their subsidy.  United Airlines had asked for $6 million to continue operating at Palmdale for another year.

       Your tax money at work.