Scenic Airlines pulls out of LA

Palmdale Regional Airport is set to lose its only regular passenger service.

Travelers will be left in the lurch when Scenic Airlines departs the airport on March 14, 2006.

The airline claims that the service is not profitable enough and that passenger numbers do not justify the service.

"The market isn't responding as we hoped, and therefore we need to exit Palmdale," Mitzi Daines, vice president of marketing and business development at Scenic Airlines, told the Associated Press.

Scenic Airlines first began offering cheap flights out of Palmdale in December 2004, flying once daily to north Las Vegas.

However, after 12 months’ of service, passenger take-up has been disappointing.

Palmdale Airport is opposed to Scenic's decision to leave and Los Angeles airport agency, which operates the airport, has offered Scenic free rent if it stays.

The agency has also spent $75,000 of its own funds marketing the flight.

The introduction of a regular passenger service through Palmdale had been the cornerstone of an initiative to spread air travelers more evenly around LA.

Scenic's departure is therefore also a disappointment to those hoping to reduce passenger traffic at Los Angeles International Airport.

Regional planners expect the number of air travelers coming through LA to double by 2030, hitting 170 million.

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