Photo: FLLewis / Media City G — Mayor Bob Frutos at a special city council meeting Monday July 6, 2015
A plan to rebrand Bob Hope Airport as Los Angeles Burbank Airport has stalled and will not move forward to the full airport authority commission for consideration at this time. In fact, the Operations and Development committee kicked the plan back to the airport authority staff and the consultant firm, Anyone Collective, to do more research and seek input from more of the stakeholders.
At that committee meeting yesterday, Burbank Mayor, Bob Frutos, says it came out that most of the interviews for the research done by the South Pasadena firm were with “… airport staff, travelers, employees and airlines officials.” Some Burbank business leaders were contacted by the firm, like Gary Olson, president and CEO of the Burbank Chamber of Commerce.
However, the firm did not “reach out to the residents of Burbank, ” according to Mayor Frutos. Nor did the firm seek out the opinions of the local officials in the three cities represented in the airport authority — Burbank, Glendale, and Pasadena. Anyone Collective was hired last December to come up with a way to rebrand and market the facility in order reportedly to boast geographic recognition and increase passengers.
Burbank officials got wind of the Los Angeles Burbank Airport plan last Friday. Mayor Frutos and city councilman, Dr. David Gordon, were among the dozen or so Burbank residents who attended the meeting to speak out against tacking on “Los Angeles” to the airport name. As an alternative, “most people were open minded to Hollywood Burbank airport because there is more of a connection,” Frutos said.
Frutos praised the committee members, airport authority commissioners Bob Brown (Burbank) and Zareh Sinanyan (Glendale), for listening to the “people’s voices and concerns.” No word yet on when the plan might return to the committee for review.
