FAA's Most Recent Forecast Sees Massive Increase in Passengers at Region's Airports
Of course, 2030 is 20 years away and much can happen between now and then. Therefore, the real eye opener is the comparatively low projected growth of Ontario. Despite the fact that Ontario has new terminals, runways thousands of feet longer than those at John Wayne Airport, and convenient freeway access to all of the Inland Empire as well as northeast Orange County, FAA does not expect it to grow more than 33%, compared to John Wayne Airport’s 38% and LAX’s whopping approximately 60%.
FAA may have pulled the trigger too quickly, however. On May 10, 2010, the Los Angeles City Council approved a motion to study the transfer of Ontario International Airport to the control of the City of Ontario (control that shifted to Los Angeles in 1967). As the City of Ontario has a strong interest in growth of Ontario International Airport as an economic engine for the currently economically moribund Inland Empire, the jury is still out as to whether Ontario will steal those passengers FAA now projects for LAX and John Wayne Airport. Stay tuned.
It would be interesting to see the FAA's full analysis about their projections. How do they arrive at these numbers? And most importantly, what assumptions and inputs do they use? We have seen projections based on simplified straight-line projections into the future based on recent data, which gives highly questionable results. Employing more sophisticated models that also use demographic trends would seem to be the most appropriate approach.