Bob Hope Airport - History

History

The airport has been known as Angeles Mesa Drive Airport (1928–1930), United Airport (1930–1934), Union Air Terminal (1934–1940), Lockheed Air Terminal (1940–1967), Hollywood-Burbank Airport (1967–1978), Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport (1978–2003) and most recently Bob Hope Airport (2003–present).

Boeing Aircraft and Transport (BA&T) was a holding company created in 1928 that included Boeing Aircraft and United Air Lines, itself a holding company for a collection of small airlines that continued to operate under their own names. One of these airlines was Pacific Air Transport (PAT), which Boeing had acquired because of PAT's west coast mail contract in January 1928. BA&T then sought a suitable site for a new airport for PAT, and found one in Burbank. BA&T had the benefit of surveys that the Aeronautics Department of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce had conducted starting in 1926 to identify potential airport sites.

It took BA&T a year and the cooperation of the city to assemble the site. The 234-acre (0.95 km2) site was rife with vines and trees and the ground had to be filled and leveled, but it had good drainage, a firm landing surface, steady winds, and good access to ground transport. Construction was completed in just seven months. In an age when few aircraft had brakes and many had a tail skid instead of a wheel, runways were not usually paved; those at Burbank had a 5-inch-thick (130 mm) mixture of oil and sand. There were no taxi strips, but the designers left room for them. Two of the runways were over 3,600 feet (1,100 m) long; a third was 2,900 feet (880 m); all were 300 feet (91 m) wide. These were generous dimensions, and the site had room for expansion.

United Airport was dedicated amid much festivity (including an air show) on Memorial Day Weekend (May 30 – June 1), 1930. Aerial view looking SE The airport and its handsome Spanish revival terminal was a showy new competitor to the nearby Grand Central Airport in neighboring Glendale, which was then Los Angeles' main airline terminal. The new Burbank facility was actually the largest commercial airport in the Los Angeles area until it was eclipsed in 1946 by the Los Angeles Airport in Westchester when that facility (formerly Mines Field, then Los Angeles Municipal Airport) commenced scheduled airline operations.

The Burbank facility remained United Airport until 1934 when it was renamed Union Air Terminal. The name change came the same year that Federal anti-trust actions caused United Aircraft And Transport Corp. to dissolve, which took effect September 26, 1934. The Union Air Terminal moniker stuck until Lockheed bought the airport in 1940 and renamed it Lockheed Air Terminal.

In March 1939 sixteen airline departures a day were scheduled out of Burbank: eight on United, five on Western and three on TWA (American's three departures were still at Glendale). Commercial air traffic continued even while Lockheed's extensive aircraft-manufacturing facilities supplied the war effort and developed numerous military and commercial aircraft in the war years and into the mid-1960s. The April 1957 OAG shows nine weekday departures on Western, six on United, six on Pacific Air Lines (which subsequently merged with Bonanza Airlines and West Coast Airlines to form Air West), one TWA and one American (a nonstop to Chicago Midway). Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) had 48 Douglas DC-4 prop airliner departures a week to SFO and SAN (they didn't fly out of LAX until 1958). By the late 1960s, Pacific Air Lines was flying new Boeing 727-100 jets nonstop to Las Vegas. In later years, PSA operated Boeing 727–200, McDonnell Douglas MD-80 and British Aerospace BAe 146 jetliners from the airfield. Hughes Airwest (which previously operated as Air West) flew Douglas DC-9-30 jets nonstop to Las Vegas, Phoenix, Salt Lake City and Denver with onestop direct DC-9 jet service to Houston Hobby Airport. Hughes Airwest even operated one-stop jet service to Grand Canyon National Park Airport near the south rim of Grand Canyon from BUR. At one point United Airlines operated Boeing 767–200 jetliners nonstop to Chicago O'Hare in addition to operating flights with other Boeing jet aircraft types to San Francisco and other destinations. These 767 flights operated by United featured the largest aircraft ever to provide scheduled passenger jet service into the airport.

In 1966 the airport had a setback when at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, February 13, a fire broke out in a greasy flue in the kitchen of the terminal building's second-floor restaurant, The Sky Room. Fanned by gusty winds the fire spread through the terminal and control tower. Controllers in the tower were able to escape on an aerial ladder and air traffic was diverted to nearby Van Nuys Airport and Los Angeles International Airport for several hours. Communications with aircraft were conducted by a controller using the radio in a light airplane belonging to Sky Roamers Air Travel, a flying club whose hangar was just east of the control tower. The fire, contained by firefighters by about 6:30 p.m., caused an estimated $2 million in damages to the terminal, tower, and electronic equipment in the tower. No injuries were reported.

Surprisingly, Lockheed officials declared that the airport would reopen the next day, and it did, using electronic equipment borrowed from LAX that was set up in a nearby hangar. The hangar also served as the airport's temporary passenger terminal and baggage claim area. The gutted terminal and tower were rebuilt and reopened the following year.

In 1967 Lockheed rechristened the facility with the more glamorous-sounding name of Hollywood-Burbank Airport. In 1969 Continental Airlines began Boeing 720B jet service to Portland and Seattle via San Jose from the renamed airpor and also flew the short hop to Ontario, California. Continental later switched to Boeing 727–200 jetliners on this route with some flights continuing on to Chicago O'Hare via Ontario. Continental went on to serve Denver with nonstop Boeing 727–200 flights from BUR. In later years Alaska Airlines initiated nonstop and direct jet service to Seattle and Portland from BUR with Boeing 727–200 aircraft, which were their first flights to serve southern California. More recently, Aloha Airlines pioneered service to Hawaii from the airport, flying Boeing 737–700 jetliners nonstop to Honolulu before this air carrier ceased all operations due to financial challenges.

The facility remained Hollywood-Burbank Airport for over a decade until 1978 when Lockheed sold the airport to the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority. At that time the airport acquired its fifth name: Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport (1978–2003).

On November 11, 2003 the airport authority voted to change the airport's name to Bob Hope Airport in honor of comedian Bob Hope, a longtime resident of nearby Toluca Lake, who had died earlier in the year and who had kept his personal airplane at the airfield. The new name was unveiled on December 17, 2003, on the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' first flight in 1903, the year that Bob Hope was born.

Numerous attempts to expand safety buffer zones and add runway length have drawn opposition from the airport’s neighbors, citing increased noise. Open space around the airport is virtually non-existent, making land acquisition unlikely.

In 2005 the airport celebrated its 75th anniversary; in 2006 it served 5,689,291 travelers on seven major carriers, with more than 70 flights daily.

After much debate between the Airport Authority, the city of Burbank, the Transportation Security Administration, and Burbank residents, in November 2007 it was decided that a new $8- to $10-million baggage screening facility for Terminal B is legal, considering the anti-growth limitations placed on the airport. The facility will house a $2.5-million Explosive Detection System, used for the automatic detection of explosives within checked luggage. However, the facility is still in the early planning phases, and may be vetoed if the residents of Burbank rally against it.

The land occupied by the old Lockheed buildings (demolished in the 1990s) at the corners of Empire Avenue and Hollywood Way and Thornton Avenue, is now the site of a growing power center commercial development with major chain restaurants and businesses.