LAX Wants Its Image on a Much Higher Plane

By Jennifer Oldham
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

April 10, 2006

The restrooms stink.

Dirty, overused loos at Los Angeles International Airport are one of the reasons passengers consistently rank the facility as one of the world's worst.

"Cleanliness is a huge issue at LAX," said Linda Hirneise, executive director of J.D. Power and Associates' global travel practice.

The city is embarking on an image makeover for the aging airport that it hopes will raise LAX from near the bottom of J.D. Power's annual airport survey. In 2004, travelers ranked LAX 19th out of 22 airports that serve 30 million or more people a year.

"Nobody is happy about being almost in last place," said Paul Haney, an airport spokesman. "We're not going to take it lying down anymore. We're going to do everything we can to start moving up in the survey."

LAX's poor reputation with passengers has long bothered airport officials, who were reluctant to spend money to update the 77-year-old airport while lawmakers debated an $11-billion modernization proposal.

Now that the plan has been put aside, the city is eager to make cosmetic changes it hopes will make a big difference with travelers.

To start, officials plan to spend $6 million a year to update terminals, including refurbishing 18 of LAX's 180 restrooms a year. Work has already begun on a $2-million upgrade of Terminal 3, where cracked flooring has been replaced and holes in the walls patched.

To help confused travelers find their way, the city's airport agency will install new signs in Terminals 1, 3, 6 and the Tom Bradley International Terminal. It will also replace rental car counters downstairs in Terminals 1 and 3 with seating for those picking up travelers.

To make the airport more attractive, officials will spend $4.5 million to landscape areas near Sepulveda and Lincoln boulevards in Westchester and Sepulveda and Imperial Highway near El Segundo.

Customers are also unhappy about long waits to get to the airport and at ticket counters and security checkpoints.

To tackle thick traffic around the airport's horseshoe-shaped roadway, officials next month will offer valet parking for $10 an hour, or $38 a day, in a lot near Terminal 4.

If the program is successful, it will be expanded to other areas of the airport.

The city also will encourage people to use the cellphone lot on the outskirts of LAX, where drivers can stop free while they wait for arriving passengers to call, rather than circle the airport. To let more drivers know the lot is there, officials are proposing partnering with a cellphone company to market it to consumers.

To shorten lines at ticket counters, the airport in October plans to introduce another pilot program that will allow travelers to check bags at parking lots B and C. A private company will issue passengers a boarding pass and luggage tags and will transport baggage to the airlines.

To reduce waits at security checkpoints, the airport agency is expanding a program this summer that dispenses plastic pouches that travelers can use for objects that tend to set off metal detectors.

"When people get up to the checkpoint, they're still fishing around in their pockets for cellphones, BlackBerrys, keys and money clips," Haney said. "All of these things will be in the baggie. Once they walk through, instead of standing there, they can pick up the bag and walk away."

Airport officials also plan to offer a registered traveler program this fall that would allow those who pass a background check to bypass regular security lines. After airlines have verified passengers' identities, their boarding passes would be stamped and they would be allowed to go either through a special lane or to the front of the line.

"It will move more people through a checkpoint faster — if you get enough people signed up," said Michael DiGirolamo, a deputy executive director at the airport agency. "We can sign up 200,000 people in L.A. easily."

LAX's 88 airlines hope the push for better customer service will encourage passengers to keep using the world's fifth-busiest airport.

"When you start adding a lot of these things up, you're taking away a lot of hassle," said Len Sloper, an airport consultant and former station manager at LAX for Alaska Airlines. "Instead of having the uncertainly of whether this is going to be a two-hour debacle, you'll know a half hour before you get there that it's not going to be an issue."