Brooke Staggs wrote a blog post detailing 13 highlights at Ontario International Airport. I’m not going to go through all 13, but I did want to highlight three of them.
Yes, Ontario Airport is international
Staggs highlighted the, um, arrival of a new airport at ONT: STARLUX Airlines, flying nonstop to and from Taipei, Taiwan.
STARLUX flies from Ontario to Taipei four days a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday). Because you cross the international date line, the flight takes two days (but really less than a day).
Existing international service expands
Of course, Volaris has been at ONT for some time, but this year they added flights to Los Cabos (SJD), León (BJX) and Morelia (MLM). This is in addition to its existing service to Guadalajara (GDL), and totals 28 weekly flights in all with at least three flights per week to each destination.
On the domestic front
United Airlines flies nonstop from Ontario to Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. These are daily flights year-round. Somehow I got the idea that they are seasonal, but they are not.
If you want Portillo’s but don’t want to drive all the way to Moreno Valley or Buena Park, just drive to Ontario and fly to O’Hare.
I finally found a legitimate use for my California mobile driver’s license (mDL) this afternoon.
Ontario International Airport (ONT) allows people without tickets to reserve a day pass to see departing passengers off. The day pass functions as the equivalent of a real passenger’s boarding pass…with appropriate identification.
Both the day pass and my mDL were in my smartphone wallet, so all went smoothly. I wasn’t paying enough attention to know if the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) compared my live face to my mDL, but they probably did.
And I can confirm that Richard Reid rule is gone: no shoe removal required. Belts are another matter.
For people at Ontario International Airport and other airports throughout the United States, May 7 is REAL ID Sort of Enforcement Day.
For people on certain sides of streets in Ontario, California, today is another type of enforcement day.
For months, we have been told that if your car is parked on the street during street sweeping day, enforcement and fines will begin during the first full week of May.
As some of you know, I’m applying for full-time employment. Every one of my cover letters has a variation on this sentence.
I am in Southern California, five miles from Ontario International Airport, and can easily travel throughout the United States or to other countries as needed.
You will note that I explicitly state that Ontario International Airport is in Southern California, not Canada. Although the phrase “Ontario CA” can be interpreted as referring to the city in the state of California, or the province in the country of Canada, depending upon how you look at it.
Not that anybody pays attention to my explicit California reference. When I was sharing pictures from the February 18 Ontario Art Walk, and labeling the pictures as originating from Ontario, California, I was still asked to promote one of the pictures on a Canadian Instagram page.
The curse that we endure in the town of the Chaffeys. I bet Mildura doesn’t have this problem.
While Ontario International Airport is not the only airport in the Inland Empire, it is (at present) the largest one, and thus has a dramatic effect on those of us who live here.
One impact? Well, in the same way that I can board a flight from ONT to my future employer in San Francisco or Austin or Paris or wherever, visitors can board flights to ONT.
And some of those visitors are business visitors. Years ago, I was one of them, flying from Portland, Oregon to some town I had never heard of before for a job interview. Not only did I fly into the airport (Terminal 1 in those days), but I also stayed at the Red Lion Inn and spent other money while I was in town for the interview.
Ontario International Airport Terminal 1 as of September 2021, 20 years after airport traffic changed forever.
Postscript: I got the job. And other jobs after that.
The economists assign a monetary impact to the activity attributable to the airport.
The impact of economic activity taking place at Ontario International Airport itself, including the activity of the airport authority, airlines and their suppliers, government workers, airport concessions, and logistics companies is estimated at $3.8 billion in 2022. This will support $2.2 billion in GDP and 27,800 jobs. The bulk of these impacts—71% of the GDP impacts and 76% of the jobs impacts— reflect the impact of visitor spending in the region.
But don’t forget the government, which gets its own goodies.
This $2.2 billion of local economic activity (GDP) will result in a total of $571 million in tax impact. This consists of $319 million in federal tax impacts and $253 million in state and local impacts. As with the GDP impacts, the majority (71%) of these tax impacts are driven by the spending of visitors to the region.
And this doesn’t count the impact of the Inland Empire’s logistics industry.
The total economic impact of the logistics activity in the eight zip codes adjacent to Ontario International Airport was $17.8 billion of economic output, $9.9 billion of GDP, and 122,200 jobs. This activity generated $2.3 billion in federal, state, and local taxes.
But what of non-monetary impacts? As the description of the Ontario International Airport – Inter Agency Collaborative (ONT-IAC) makes clear, some of those impacts are negative.
The ONT-IAC implements the policies and criteria of the Airport Land Use Compatibility Plan (ALUCP) to prevent future incompatible land uses surrounding ONT and minimizing the public’s exposure to excessivie noise and safety hazards.
There’s always a balancing act between positive and negative impacts. While I might appreciate the ability to board a flight to Dallas at 6:00 in the morning, someone who lives near the airport may not be as appreciative. And the referenced “incompatible land uses” restrict the types of businesses that can be located near the airport.
While the Amazon LGB3 warehouse in Eastvale, California is some distance from Ontario International Airport, the airport’s presence has a positive impact on the warehouse and its workers.
But the relatively large amount of open space near the airport (again, our beloved warehouses) has helped to ensure that ONT does not need to implement the severe flight restrictions found at John Wayne and our former airport overlord Los Angeles International Airport.
And for better or worse the airport will remain for some time. It’s not like it’s going to close down or anything.
Although 9/11, the 2008 recession, and COVID tried to close it.
And one more thing about your business…
Does your firm need to create content for Inland Empire residents, Inland Empire visitors, and others who use your firm’s services?
Are you ready to take your Ontario, Eastvale, or Inland Empire firm to the next level with a compelling message that increases awareness, consideration, conversion, and long-term revenue?
I learned some fun facts during Eren Cello’s presentation to the Greater Ontario Business Council this morning, and filed those in my brain along with some other facts that I have collected over the years.
Cello is the Director of Marketing and Communications for Ontario International Airport in Ontario, California. Which, incidentally, is not in Canada.
Ontario International Airport in the 1980s and 1990s
I first became aware of Ontario International Airport in October 1983, when I flew in from Portland, Oregon for a job interview. Back in those days, you didn’t walk from the airplane straight into the terminal. Instead, you walked to a flight of stairs, went down the stairs, then walked across the runway to enter the terminal.
As Ontario and the surrounding area grew over the years, the then-owner of Ontario International Airport (Los Angeles World Airports) decided that an ambitious expansion of the airport was in order, including modern, multi-level terminals with check-in and baggage claim on the first floor, and the gates and shops on the second floor. Instead of renovating the existing terminal, LAWA decided to build two brand new terminals. These terminals were opened in 1998 and were designated “Terminal 2” and “Terminal 4.” As soon as traffic increased to the required level, LAWA would go ahead and build Terminal 3 between the two terminals.
And the old terminal, now “Terminal 1,” was closed.
Ontario International Airport Terminal 1 as of September 2021, 20 years after airport traffic changed forever.
It sounded like a sensible design and a sensible plan. What could go wrong?
Ontario International Airport in the 2000s and 2010s
Well, three years after Terminals 2 and 4 opened, 9/11 happened. This had two immediate effects.
First, the anticipated increase in passenger traffic needed to open Terminal 3 didn’t happen.
There were other alleged reasons for this which eventually led to the separation of Ontario International Airport from LAWA, but those are beyond the scope of this post. I wrote about them in a personal blog at the time; here’s an example.
Second, increased security meant that the second floors of Terminals 2 and 4 were accessible to passengers only.
The days of walking to the gate to send off departing passengers and greet arriving ones were gone forever.
And for all of those businesses that were located on the second floors of the two terminals, their customer base was cut dramatically, since non-ticketed individuals were confined to the first floors of the terminals. Until recently, those first floors only included the random vending machine to serve visitors. Only now is the situation starting to improve.
According to Cello, Ontario International Airport now serves 11 passenger airlines with nonstop flights to destinations in the United States, Mexico, Central America, and Asia.
The second most fascinating fun fact
But of all the fun facts I learned today, the second most fascinating fun fact was the reason why the international airlines are based in Terminal 2 rather than Terminal 4. No, it’s not because Southwest has so many flights in Terminal 4 that there is no room for anyone else. Actually, parts of Terminal 4 are closed; if you see a film with someone at Gate 412, you know the film is staged. See 15:08 of this video.
The reason why the international airlines are based in Terminal 2 is because that terminal is the only one designed for the large wide-body jets that go to international destinations.
Southwest Airlines, of course, has a different operating model that doesn’t need a lot of wide-body jets.
International services in the future and in the past
Incidentally, there are both short-term and long-term plans to improve the facilities for international passengers, who currently can depart from Terminal 2 but have to arrive at a completely separate “international arrivals terminal” (reviews) and go through security there.
And if you’re wondering why Ontario International Airport doesn’t have optimum service for international passengers, the “international” in the airport’s designation merely means that there is at least one existing flight to an international destination. For Ontario, trans-Pacific cargo flights existed back in the 1940s, and the first passenger flight from an international destination occurred (according to Wikipedia) on May 18, 1946, when a Pacific Overseas Airlines flight arrived from Shanghai. (This was the Pacific Overseas Airlines based in Ontario, California, not the Pacific Overseas Airlines in Siam. The Ontario company appears to have only been in existence for a year or so.)
Of course, back in 1946, international passengers didn’t have great expectations. Leaving the plane by going down a flight of stairs was the normal mode of operations; none of this walking from the airplane straight into the airport building.
The Beatles arrive at the former Idlewild Airport on February 7, 1964. Note the stairway in the background. By United Press International, photographer unknown – This image is available from the United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3c11094.This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons: Licensing for more information., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4532407
The MOST fascinating fun fact
Oh, and in case you’re wondering why the wide-body jet service is only the second most fascinating fun fact, I learned something else today.
The “Paw Squad” at Ontario International Airport has their own trading cards!
Bredemarket 