Los Angeles International Airport

Los Angeles International Airport is the primary airport serving Los Angeles, California, the second-most populated metropolitan area of the United States. It is most often referred to by its IATA airport code LAX, with the letters pronounced individually (el-a-ex). LAX is located in southwestern Los Angeles in the neighborhood of Westchester, 16 mi (26 km) from the downtown core.

In 2009 LAX was the sixth busiest airport in the world, with 58,915,100 passengers. The airport is a major hub for United Airlines, Alaska Airlines and American Airlines and a focus city for Southwest Airlines, Allegiant Air, Air New Zealand, Qantas, and Virgin America. It also serves as an international gateway for Delta Air Lines. Following United's merger with Continental Airlines, the airport will be the seventh largest hub for United.

The airport also functions as joint civil-military facility, providing a base for the United States Coast Guard and its Coast Guard Air Station Los Angeles facility, operating 4 HH-65 Dolphin helicopters.

LAX is the busiest airport in California in terms of flight operations, passenger traffic and air cargo activity, followed by San Francisco International Airport (SFO). LAX is also the only U.S. airport to serve 3 or more international destinations with ridership of 1 million passengers or more per year (Tokyo-Narita, London-Heathrow, Taipei).[citation needed]

Although LAX is the busiest airport in the Greater Los Angeles Area, the region relies on a multiple airport system because of its vast size. Many of the area's most well-known attractions are closer to alternative airports than to LAX; for example, Hollywood and Griffith Park are closer to Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, while Disneyland, the Honda Center, Angel Stadium of Anaheim, and other Orange County attractions are closer to John Wayne Airport in Orange County. Long Beach Airport is closer to some of the coastal attractions known to Southern California like Palos Verdes and Huntington Beach, and LA/Ontario International Airport is closer to the major cities of the Inland Empire, Riverside and San Bernardino.

The airport occupies some 3,500 acres (5 sq mi; 14 km2)[2] of the city on the Pacific coast, about 15 mi (24 km) southwest of downtown Los Angeles. LAX is one of the most famous locations for commercial aircraft spotting, most notably at the so called "Imperial Hill" area (also known as Clutter's Park) in El Segundo from which nearly the entire South Complex of the airport can be viewed. Another famous spotting location sits right under the final approach for runways 24 L&R on a small grass lawn next to the Westchester In-N-Out Burger restaurant, and is noted as one of the few remaining locations in Southern California from which spotters may watch such a wide variety of low-flying commercial airliners from directly underneath a flightpath.[5] The airport's coastal location renders it liable to low lying cloud or fog conditions requiring flights to be occasionally diverted to LA/Ontario International Airport, 47 mi (76 km) to the east.

Flight Path Learning Center is a museum located at 6661 Imperial Highway and was formerly known as the "West Imperial Terminal." This building used to house some charter flights (Condor Airlines) and regular scheduled flights by MGM Grand Air. It sat empty for 10 years until it was re-opened as a learning center for LAX.

The center contains information on the history of aviation, several pictures of the airport, as well as aircraft scale models, flight attendant uniforms, and general airline memorabilia such as playing cards, china, magazines, signs, even a TWA gate information sign.

The museum claims to be "the only aviation museum and research center situated at a major airport and the only facility with a primary emphasis on contributions of civil aviation to the history and development of Southern California". However, there are other museums at major airports including the Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air and Space Museum adjacent to Washington Dulles Airport, the Royal Thai Air Force Museum at Don Muang Airport, the Suomen ilmailumuseo (Finnish Aviation Museum) at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport, the Frontier of Flight Museum at Dallas Love Field, and others.