LAX Parking Lot is Home For Airline Employees
If you ever thought as a child that living at the airport would be fun, you have only to look at the residents of LAX Parking Lot B to see that "fun" is not exactly at the heart of real-life airport living.
It's mostly a matter of drab, daily routines.
The people living in the assorted motor homes and trailers arranged in neighborhood fashion in Parking Lot B are all airline employees who, feeling pressured by lowered industry wages across the board, have decided to save money by living in this part-time motor home colony.
Most of them have homes out of state or hundreds of miles from Los Angeles and would otherwise be forced to rent a second house or apartment while working.
Today, there are a little over 100 residents living in the Los Angeles Airport's Lot B, most of them men, with jobs that range from airplane captains and first officers to mechanics, flight attendants, support staff and air cargo company employees.
Lot B is located just off Aviation Boulevard, about 3,500 feet away from the south runway.
It is basically a huge, flat expanse of asphalt filled with white and beige motor homes.
The deafening noise of jet engines overhead is a regular part of everyday life.
Most of the residents of Lot B spend weeks at a time away from their loved ones in order to keep their jobs and move up the pay grade ladder.
The colony originally started as a scattering of RV trailers around the various LAX parking lots, until airport officials finally decided to group them all together into a single lot.
The colony now has an official code of conduct as well as an unofficial mayor: Doug Rogers (62), a United Airline's mechanic.
Residency requirements include background checks, proof of airline employment and regular motor home inspections.
The lower wages, layoffs, demotions and overall job insecurity that contributes to the appeal of Parking Lot B is, in part, the result of a years-long slump in air travel that began after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and only worsened with the onset of the 2007 national economic recession.
Salaries for pilots and other airline employees have sunk, and captains like Lot B resident Jim Lancaster have been demoted to first officers, tossing aside seniorities that were built over the course of many years of hard work.
"You can't maintain a household elsewhere and afford a home here in this economic climate," says Rogers.
And that does seem to be the same conclusion that all of the residents of LAX Parking Lot B (who pay only $60 a month for their temporary housing) have arrived at.
It's mostly a matter of drab, daily routines.
The people living in the assorted motor homes and trailers arranged in neighborhood fashion in Parking Lot B are all airline employees who, feeling pressured by lowered industry wages across the board, have decided to save money by living in this part-time motor home colony.
Most of them have homes out of state or hundreds of miles from Los Angeles and would otherwise be forced to rent a second house or apartment while working.
Today, there are a little over 100 residents living in the Los Angeles Airport's Lot B, most of them men, with jobs that range from airplane captains and first officers to mechanics, flight attendants, support staff and air cargo company employees.
Lot B is located just off Aviation Boulevard, about 3,500 feet away from the south runway.
It is basically a huge, flat expanse of asphalt filled with white and beige motor homes.
The deafening noise of jet engines overhead is a regular part of everyday life.
Most of the residents of Lot B spend weeks at a time away from their loved ones in order to keep their jobs and move up the pay grade ladder.
The colony originally started as a scattering of RV trailers around the various LAX parking lots, until airport officials finally decided to group them all together into a single lot.
The colony now has an official code of conduct as well as an unofficial mayor: Doug Rogers (62), a United Airline's mechanic.
Residency requirements include background checks, proof of airline employment and regular motor home inspections.
The lower wages, layoffs, demotions and overall job insecurity that contributes to the appeal of Parking Lot B is, in part, the result of a years-long slump in air travel that began after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and only worsened with the onset of the 2007 national economic recession.
Salaries for pilots and other airline employees have sunk, and captains like Lot B resident Jim Lancaster have been demoted to first officers, tossing aside seniorities that were built over the course of many years of hard work.
"You can't maintain a household elsewhere and afford a home here in this economic climate," says Rogers.
And that does seem to be the same conclusion that all of the residents of LAX Parking Lot B (who pay only $60 a month for their temporary housing) have arrived at.
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