Los Angeles International Airport (IATA: LAX, ICAO: KLAX, FAA LID: LAX) is the primary airport serving the Greater Los Angeles Area, the second-most populated metropolitan area in the United States. It is most often referred to by its IATA airport code LAX, with the letters pronounced individually. LAX is located in southwestern Los Angeles along the Pacific coast in the neighborhood of Westchester, 16 miles (26 km) from the downtown core and is the primary airport of Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA), an agency of the Los Angeles city government formerly known as the Department of Airports.
In 2011, LAX was the sixth busiest airport in the world after Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Beijing Capital International Airport, London Heathrow Airport, Chicago O'Hare International Airport, and Tokyo Haneda International Airport with 61,862,052 passengers. It is also the only airport to rank among the top five U.S. airports for both passenger and cargo traffic.
LAX is the busiest airport in the Greater Los Angeles Area, but other airports including Bob Hope Airport, John Wayne Airport, Long Beach Airport, LA/Ontario International Airport, and Palm Springs International Airport also serve the region. LAX is also the busiest airport in California and the West Coast of the United States in terms of flight operations, passenger traffic and air cargo activity, leading it to be referred to as the "Gateway to the Pacific Rim."
Read more about Los Angeles International Airport: History, Aircraft Spotting, Theme Building, Terminals, Airlines and Destinations, Traffic and Statistics, Terminal Connections, Airport Lounges, Ground Transportation, Coast Guard Air Station Los Angeles, Flight Path Learning Center, Other Facilities, Incidents Involving LAX, Planned Modernization, In Popular Culture
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“In the great department store of life, baseball is the toy department.”
—Los Angeles Sportscaster. quoted in Independent Magazine (London, Sept. 28, 1991)
“Being blunt with your feelings is very American. In this big country, I can be as brash as New York, as hedonistic as Los Angeles, as sensuous as San Francisco, as brainy as Boston, as proper as Philadelphia, as brawny as Chicago, as warm as Palm Springs, as friendly as my adopted home town of Dallas, Fort Worth, and as peaceful as the inland waterway that rubs up against my former home in Virginia Beach.”
—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)
“Many people I know in Los Angeles believe that the Sixties ended abruptly on August 9, 1969, ended at the exact moment when word of the murders on Cielo Drive traveled like brushfire through the community, and in a sense this is true. The tension broke that day. The paranoia was fulfilled.”
—Joan Didion (b. 1935)
“It was like taking a beloved person to the airport and returning to an empty house. I miss the people. I miss the world.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)