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Long Beach Airport IATA:
LGB,
ICAO: KLGB,
FAA
LID: LGB), also
known as Daugherty Field, is located in
Long Beach, California,
and serves Los
Angeles and Orange
Counties. The airport has four smaller
runways and one long runway for jets (10,000 ft), plus nine
taxiways, and occupies 1,166
acres (472
ha). It was formerly known as Long
Beach Municipal Airport.
Overview
Long Beach Airport has very little passenger service compared with
the dominant
Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) approximately 18 miles (29
km) to the northwest, and will always remain a relatively small airport
because of restrictive ordinances adopted to minimize noise in the
residential neighborhoods near LGB. The airport is under one of the
strictest ordinances in the United
States on both airport noise and the number of commercial flights.
The current noise levels allow for 41 daily commercial flights and 25
commuter flights. Local community groups and activists are very vocal
about any changes at the airport.
At the same time, the arrival of low-cost carrier
JetBlue Airways at Long Beach Airport
in 2001, and that airline's decision to establish a West Coast hub at
LGB, has substantially increased the air traffic to the airport and has
cemented LGB's standing as a viable alternative to LAX for flights from
the Los Angeles area to major
East Coast cities. While JetBlue used
the local noise ordinance to turn Long Beach Airport into a miniature
fortress hub, it quickly reached
maximum capacity and has since been forced to rework flight schedules
and direct future growth to other
Los
Angeles area airports. JetBlue calls LGB a
Focus city and now operates 31 of
the 41 slots.
Air cargo carriers, including FedEx
and UPS, also maintain
operations out of LGB. 57,000 tons of goods are transported each year.
The Boeing Company (formerly
McDonnell Douglas)
maintains production of the
C-17 military transport jet; maintenance facilities for other Boeing
and McDonnell Douglas/Douglas aircraft (including the historic
DC-9 and
DC-10 aircraft) are also found at Long Beach Airport.
Gulfstream Aerospace
also has a completion/service center at the airport.
Although commercial flights are severely restricted, there are still
a large number of flights at the airport from charter flights, private
aviation, flight schools, law enforcement flights, helicopters,
advertising blimps, planes towing advertising banners, etc. Because of
that, Long Beach airport is one of the
busiest general aviation airports in the world, with 398,433
aircraft movements in 2007.
Long Beach Airport has a single terminal. It is notable for its
Streamline Moderne style
of architecture and is a historical landmark. Because of the age and
limited size of the current terminal, changes—including a possible
addition—are currently on-going.
Long Beach Transit
Route 111 serves the airport. Wardlow Road runs from the airport to the
Los Angeles County/Orange County border, where it becomes Ball Road and
crosses the northern edge of the
Disneyland Resort.
Long Beach Airport is the second closest airport to
Disneyland, after
John Wayne Airport.
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