Economic and Political Analysis
Volume V | Issue 5 | Spring 2016
Timeline of Ontario Airport pg. 2-6 A Conversation with the OIAA Board pg. 7-12 Photo Credit: Nc3D Photography | Flickr Photo Credit: California Department of Corrections
ONT Free At Last Like many in the Inland Empire, we at the Inland Empire Center have been following the developments at Ontario International Airport (ONT) with great interest. Indeed, we published an article on the decline of the airport in one of our first issues in the spring of 2011. We are pleased to dedicate the current issue to the future of Ontario International Airport, now that it will return to local authorities. First we trace the development of the airport since its inception in 1923, through the battle for local control that has spanned the past five years (p. 2). The Ontario International Airport Authority (OIAA) will now own and run the airport. We introduce you to the OIAA board members and have a wide-ranging conversation with them (p.7). Next we examine some of the challenges facing the airport, noting that the smaller airports in the Bay Area face many of the same problems (p.13). Finally, we look at the logistics sector in the Inland Empire and spotlight the growth of cargo operations at ONT (p. 20).
Challenges Remain for ONT pg. 13-20 Logistics Flies High pg. 20-23
On March 4, 2016, the Inland Empire Center will hold its first Inland Empire policy conference at the Drucker School of Management in Claremont. Kelly J. Fredericks, the newly-named CEO of OIAA, will deliver the keynote remarks. Alan Wapner of the OIAA and Ontario City Council will chair a panel on airport operations. Bruce Atlas from Southwest Airlines and David Bonner from UPS will also be part of that discussion. Ron Loveridge of OIAA, UC Riverside, and former mayor of Riverside, will chair a panel on economic development. He will be joined by Jan Brueckner of UC Irvine, Steve Lambert of The 20/20 Network and Ontario Airport Alliance, and Mike Wolfe from Lee & Associates. We at the CMC Inland Empire Center hope you find this edition of Inland Empire Outlook a useful guide. Please visit our website, www. inlandempirecenter.org, for updates to these stories and other Inland Empire news.