LAX Is Rethinking the Specifics of Its Expansion Plans

When you’re upgrading the infrastructure of a major airport, the planning process can take time. The effort to replace Newark Liberty International Airport’s monorail with a more reliable form of transportation, for instance, has been years in the works; it’ll be years more before travelers ride on the system set to replace it. There’s a challenge that comes with planning that far in advance, though: sometimes you find yourself reckoning with events that no one saw coming.

Like, say, a global pandemic that prompts millions of people to rethink their travel habits. That’s one of the reasons why some planned upgrades to Los Angeles International Airport are being rethought, according to reporting from Colleen Shalby at the Los Angeles Times. While the airport’s priority had previously been an increased capacity, revised travel projections have prompted a shift in strategy towards infrastructure improvements instead.

That comes from John Ackerman, the chief executive of Los Angeles World Airports, the agency that oversees LAX’s operations. “While our traffic’s improving, it’s not improving at the rate that we need it to be successful. So we simply don’t need additional capacity at this point,” Ackerman told the Times. “We don’t need additional terminals — we need to fix our core infrastructure.”

According to Ackerman, the airport initially believed it would be serving 110 million travelers in 2028. They’ve since revised that down to 90 million — still a step up from the 75 million who used the airport in 2023, but nowhere near as dramatic an increase.

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What does that look like in practice? The agency’s Chirf Development Officer, Michael Christensen, told the Times that the amount currently set to be spent in infrastructure — close to $500 million — would almost certainly rise in the coming months. It’s an understandable move; improving the airport experience for the travelers you do have makes them more likely to return, after all.