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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“There are two modes of transport in Los Angeles: car and ambulance. Visitors who wish to remain inconspicuous are advised to choose the latter”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1951)
“The freeway experience ... is the only secular communion Los Angeles has.... Actual participation requires a total surrender, a concentration so intense as to seem a kind of narcosis, a rapture-of-the-freeway. The mind goes clean. The rhythm takes over.”
—Joan Didion (b. 1935)
“Cities are ... distinguished by the catastrophic forms they presuppose and which are a vital part of their essential charm. New York is King Kong, or the blackout, or vertical bombardment: Towering Inferno. Los Angeles is the horizontal fault, California breaking off and sliding into the Pacific: Earthquake.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“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)