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Bob Hope Airport , formerly known as United Airport (1930-1934); Union Air Terminal (1934-1940); Lockheed Air Terminal (1940-1967); Hollywood-Burbank Airport (1967-1978); and most recently Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport (1978-2003), is located in Burbank, California, United States.

It serves the Los Angeles area including Glendale, Pasadena, and the San Fernando Valley. Non-stop flights from the airport go mostly to destinations within the western United States but service also includes Atlanta, New York, and Orlando. The airport has two runways.

The airport is owned by the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority, which is controlled by the governments of the three cities in its name.

The Bob Hope Airport Train Station, just south of the airport, is served by Amtrak and Metrolink.

BUR has public Wi-Fi provided by both AT&T and T-Mobile.

History

In the late 1920s the United States Department of Commerce recommended Burbank as the most favorable airport location in the Los Angeles area. Contruction thus began on a facility, built by United Aircraft and Transport Corporation, a large conglomerate and former parent of the The Boeing Company. Named United Airport and dedicated amid much festivity (including an air show) on Memorial Day Weekend (May 30 - June 1), 1930, the facility was the primary and largest commercial airport in the Los Angeles region until it was eclipsed in 1946 by the Los Angeles Municipal Airport in Westchester when that facility (the former Mines Field) commenced commercial operations. Nevertheless, upon its opening, Burbank's United Airport quickly proved to be a state-of-the-art facility and a showy new competitor to the nearby Grand Central Airport in neighboring Glendale.

The Burbank facility remained named 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 for six years, until Lockheed bought the airport in 1940.

Lockheed immediately renamed the property the Lockheed Air Terminal. Commercial air traffic continued even while Lockheed supplied the war effort and developed numerous military and commercial aircraft in the ensuing war years and into the mid-1960s. In 1967, Lockheed, aiming at attracting more business, rechristened the facility with the more glamorous-sounding name of Hollywood-Burbank Airport.

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

On November 11, 2003, the authority voted to change the airport's name to Bob Hope Airport in honor of the late 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 increased runway length has drawn a considerable amount of negative feedback from the airport’s closest residents, citing disturbances from increased noise pollution as a serious nuisance. Expansion space around the airport is virtually non-existent due to the encroachment of the surrounding city, leaving the unlikely option of aggressive land acquisition almost entirely out of reach.

BUR is also noted by aircraft spotters as being easily accessible for pleasure viewing of commercial aircraft without the common drawback of disturbing business and other airport functions/facilities.

Today the airport services 4.9 million travelers per year on seven major carriers, with more than 70 flights daily. It celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2005.

Terminals and airlines

Bob Hope Airport has two terminals, "A" and "B," which are joined together as part of the same building.

Terminal A

Terminal B

Expansion

In 2002, Terminal A was renovated and expanded. Plans existed for years to expand the airport with a new passenger terminal north of the existing one, but these plans have been scrapped due to significant opposition from the Burbank City Council and local groups.

A 2004 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) report cited the need for expansion at this airport, but for now this seems impossible due to agreed upon restrictions of the size and number of gates. The current passenger terminal is too close to the runways according to current safety standards but is grandfathered in because of its age.

Trivia

  • The music video for the song In My Darkest Hour, by Megadeth, was filmed here. Many Southern California metal fans were on hand after an advertising campaign on now-defunct radio station KNAC. The shoot turned rowdy, with fans spray-painting planes on the tarmac and leaving broken bottles on the runway.

External links

Airports of Los Angeles | Airports in California | Transportation in Los Angeles

Aeropuerto Bob Hope | ボブ・ホープ空港 | Bob Hope Airport

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Bob Hope Airport".

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