Over 30 Flights to L.A. Have Disappeared in Los Angeles, California: A blog about the changing airline market in Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles area has lost 30 flights a day to other destinations in the United States and Canada since the start of the year, according to data from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics. The number of daily departures to other countries has fallen even more sharply.
The numbers are part of an ongoing decline in flights to and from Southern California that began around 2008 when airports across the country cut capacity due to rising fuel costs and a decline in demand for air travel caused by the economic downturn.
In Los Angeles, which is among the largest markets for commercial aviation, the decline is being driven by a decline in international service, said airline analyst Robert W. Mann Jr., a former executive at American Airlines and US Airways who now runs RW Mann & Co., an aviation consulting firm based in Port Washington, N.Y.
Flights to L.A. Have Disappeared in Los Angeles, California: A blog about the changing airline market in Los Angeles.
As a local resident, it is difficult to appreciate just how dynamic the airline business can be, especially if you have lived in one place for a few years or more. It is sometimes hard to know what to make of all the new airlines that seem to be coming and going.
If you are a business traveler or travel with your family on a regular basis, then you certainly know what I mean. All of a sudden there will be several new airlines serving your home airport (LAX) with non-stop flights to places like London, Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt. But within a year or two many of these new airlines have gone bankrupt and disappeared from the scene as quickly as they appeared. The same thing happens with low cost carriers such as Virgin America and JetBlue that suddenly appear on your radar screen, only to disappear again within months or even weeks.
This week it happened again when American Airlines announced that they would be dropping LAX-JFK in favor of LAX-Washington National (DCA). This was not entirely unexpected given the fact that American has been losing money on their transcontinental routes for years now.
A few years ago, I started this blog as a way to keep track of the changing airline market in Los Angeles. A lot has changed since then: We’ve seen new airlines begin flying, incumbent airlines launch new routes, and flights that have been around for years disappear.
This post is about the latter – the flights that have disappeared from Los Angeles over the years. I’m going to share some of my favorite examples, including where each flight went and what airline it was operated by.
More than 30 flights have disappeared from the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) schedule in November, reflecting an ongoing trend of airlines pulling out of or reducing service at what is one of the nation’s largest airports.
The cuts come as airlines grapple with less demand for flights and continue to right-size their operations. LAX has taken a particularly hard hit, with airlines such as Southwest, Hawaiian and United cutting flights.
For Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV), the cuts come as the airline has already pulled back on its flights at the airport. The carrier plans to launch a new service between Oakland and Los Angeles this fall and will also start a new route from Hawaii to Los Angeles in January.
Southwest had previously operated two daily flights to Hawaii from Los Angeles but discontinued those flights earlier this year. Other airlines that cut back on their L.A. service include Hawaiian Airlines and United Airlines (NYSE:UAL).
In a report that calls into question the safety of air travel, a team of investigators has found that more than 30 flights have disappeared over Los Angeles in the past two years.
The report, issued by the California Department of Transportation, states that although there were no fatalities on any of these flights, the loss of so many planes raises troubling questions about the current airline system.
“It is truly amazing that this problem has gone unnoticed until now,” says Richard Chen, head of the investigation team. “We have lost almost an entire fleet of airplanes and nobody has even noticed it.”
The report notes that some experts are quick to point out that not all airlines use Los Angeles as a hub for their operations; according to Dr. Marshall Fincher, professor of aerospace engineering at USC, “Of course we’re not going to see all the same flights everyday; some airports just aren’t as big as others.”
However, Dr. Fincher did note that a lack of information is the biggest obstacle investigators face when trying to determine where these missing planes might be going.
The United Airlines plane from New York to Los Angeles that disappeared on a flight to LAX has now been found in Los Angeles.
There have been no injuries reported, and the flight is scheduled to resume later this afternoon.
The flight was scheduled to depart New York at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time and land on time at 7:15 p.m. Pacific time. The plane was found by Los Angeles International Airport’s air traffic control tower about two hours later, according to the Federal Aviation Administration’s website.
The FAA said it will continue to investigate the disappearance of the plane and the FAA said it is not releasing any additional information at this time.
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One of the more interesting facts about Los Angeles International Airport is that it’s one of the few international airports in the world with only one run way. It’s also one of the only international airports with a single run way that has a single terminal. The airport has been ranked as one of the worst in the world by many travelers, and there are many reasons why. Here are just a few reasons why LAX is so bad.
When you arrive at LAX, you’ll have to go through customs, immigration and security. This means you’ll have to line up to get your passport stamped, then you’ll have to line up again for your return trip. And if you’re flying with a friend or family member who isn’t an American citizen, they will also have to go through customs and immigration as well. This means that if you want to travel with someone else who doesn’t speak English, or if your flight is delayed, or if you need to wait for your luggage, you’ll be waiting in line for hours!
LAX has very limited parking and no public transportation system. If you plan on driving to LAX from another airport, it’s going to take several hours because of traffic and construction delays. If you want to travel by bus or train