By Rick Elkins
Visalia - For more than a year now Great Lakes Airlines, which offers two flights daily out of the Visalia Airport, has been looking for a new destination. That new destination is Los Angeles International Airport.
Mario Cifuentez, airport manager for the city of Visalia, confirms that Great Lakes is negotiating with LAX. Right now Great Lakes flies to Ontario International Airport, but with the downturn in the economy the number of connecting flights out of Ontario has dropped, making it less attractive to travelers. He said the main carrier out of Ontario is Southwest Airlines, which does offer many destinations.
“I'd love to see that,” Cifuentez said of the LAX destination. “I'm confident LAX will do great for us. It offers more flights,” he said, adding that Great Lakes may be in the same terminal as United and Delta.
Kassi Mohlenkamp, regional sales manager for Great Lakes headquartered in Wyoming, said the airline is “aggressively” pursuing a spot at LAX.
“We obviously see the need,” she said. “It's a big challenge.”
Great Lakes had looked at offering flights to Vegas. Several months ago it switched its Merced flights from Ontario to Vegas, but Cifuentez said the logistics could not be worked out for Visalia.
“Only way to do Vegas for us would include a stop in Merced,” he said. The plan is the flights from Visalia would be direct to LAX.
LAX is one of the biggest airports in the world with thousands of flights in and out every day. From LAX, a traveler can go almost anywhere in the world. Great Lakes does not have any flights into LAX today.
Cifuentez said the number of travelers using Great Lakes is down, but with only two flights instead of three offered every day, the number of passengers per plane is up slightly. Mohlenkamp agreed, saying that “things are looking up” for the airline.
Airport Improvements
The city recently got two Federal Aviation Administration grants to make improvements at the airport, including a study of a new terminal.
Cifuentez said he is moving his office out of the terminal in a few days. He and his assistant are relocating to the old city fire station office at the airport. The terminal will still open for passengers.
“In these tough economic times we have to look at using the space that we have more efficiently. We had a portion of the old fire station that wasn't being used, but due to its location, was only suitable for aviation related tenants,” said Cifuentez who said the city decided to remodel a portion of the building to accommodate the airport administrative staff.
He said the city is looking at leasing the office space in the terminal as well as two other small offices in the old fire station.
Part of the new terminal study is to determine how the city can extend Airport Drive to eventually where a road will circle the entire airport, tying into the road where the new animal shelter will be constructed on the west side of the airport.
“We would have to move the terminal to develop the access road,” said Cifuentez who added while it doesn't seem like there is enough room for a road on the north end of the airport, there is plenty of room. “Eventually, you will be able to drive completely around the airport,” he said.
The Airport got a second grant to do engineering design for drainage improvements to the runway safety area.
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