Whiteman Airport isn’t failing. It’s being managed that way.

Los Angeles County supervisors and some city councilmembers have increasingly framed Whiteman Airport as underused, declining, and financially unsustainable. But the County’s own data tells a different story.

Whiteman supports roughly 424 based aircraft and serves as a critical hub for flight training, maintenance, and small aviation businesses in the San Fernando Valley. It is also a federally designated reliever airport, helping reduce congestion at Van Nuys and Burbank.

The activity is not disappearing. A recent Los Angeles County study projects continued aviation growth through at least 2035.

So why does the airport appear underutilized?

Start with the hangars.

The County points to a 39 percent vacancy rate as evidence of weak demand. But that number obscures what is actually happening. Most of the vacancy is concentrated in lower quality spaces, especially tie downs, where vacancy reaches 68 percent.

Demand for usable space is real. Vista Aviation, one of the airport’s largest businesses, has a waiting list of 30 tenants. The County itself has about 15 tenants waiting for its best hangars.

That is roughly 45 tenants waiting for space that actually works. This is not a demand problem. It is a quality problem.

A 2025 County study confirms as much. Most hangars are rated poor to average, with infrastructure problems that limit how they can be used. Only a small share are considered good.

Yet the County’s consultant, while studying partial or full closure, counts deteriorated and functionally unusable space as available supply, then cites its vacancy as evidence of decline. The market is telling a different story.

The long term picture points the same way. Many leases at Whiteman run decades into the future, some into the 2050s and beyond. When facilities are usable, businesses commit.

Then there is the question of federal obligations and public funding. Because Los Angeles County has accepted FAA funding, it is required to keep Whiteman open, maintain it properly, and operate it as a self sustaining aviation facility.

Yet key FAA funded improvements have not moved forward, and the Board of Supervisors has not released available FAA funds tied to airport investment. Instead, aviation system funds are being used to study scenarios that include partial or full closure rather than prioritizing maintenance and upgrades.

That is not just a planning choice. It raises a more basic question of priorities, compliance, and intent. Los Angeles County cannot legally run the airport down and then point to the resulting deterioration as proof that it has failed.

Whiteman is not a marginal facility. It is part of a five airport general aviation system serving Los Angeles County, supporting flight training, aviation businesses, and public safety operations.

And the system impact is not hypothetical. If Whiteman continues to deteriorate, the consequences will not stay in Pacoima. They will ripple across the region’s aviation network.

“Whiteman Airport is a profitable airport,” said Penny Alderson, owner of Vista Aviation. “If Whiteman Airport were to close, at least two other county airports would also have to close, and that would collapse the Southern California aviation system.”

The County can point to vacancy and aging infrastructure as proof the airport is struggling. But those conditions did not arise on their own.

Vacancy at Whiteman is not excess capacity. It is the result of deferred investment.