Originally Posted by
secretsea18
Interesting that you see it this way.
As a resident near ONT, I don't think that anyone who lives in LAX territory is or feels "forced" to use ONT for any reason. It is the opposite way around. ONT wanna-be passengers are "forced" to use SNA or LAX when we would really rather use ONT. Just about everyone I know is amazed that I leave from SNA or LAX instead of ONT when I fly on a domestic itinerary, and my answer is that there are so few flights from ONT. So, as I said, it is a self-fulfilling situation.
On the plus side in favor of ONT:
almost never any fog
on time (or early) departures
no lines at TSA checkpoint
always available parking spots (although the bus can be slow to come around)
lots of really big airplanes to look at... 747, MD1011, 767, DC10, A330 (just none of them commercial flights)
The whole point of rationalization was to get normal LAX passengers to use ONT as an alternate airport . A very large percentage of the 7.2 million passengers that used ONT in 2005 were passengers that normally used LAX and SNA lured to ONT by cheap airfares.
My cousin in Cerritos was one of them. He lives 20 min away from LGB and 40 minutes away from both LAX and SNA but back in the mid 00's whenever he would come visit the family in NY he would drive the hour to ONT and fly B6 because it was at least $200 cheaper than other options (which also explains why B6 dropped the airport like a bad habit).