New flights for Ontario, Palmdale

The campaign to get travelers to avoid LAX gets a big boost with plans by ExpressJet Airlines to start service out of Ontario International Airport, beginning in April. Ontario will get 29 new daily nonstops to 14 cities, including Albuquerque, Boise, Colorado Springs, Fresno, Monterey and Oklahoma City. Houston-based ExpressJet will operate out of 24 cities, most of them mid-sized, and use 50-seat regional jets. ExpressJet Holdings previously served as a regional service for Continental (it had been known as Continental Express), but Continental scaled back its service, so there is capacity to be filled. News of the Ontario expansion has been trickling out for several days, though ExpressJet won't formally announce the new schedule until Monday. The other big airline news is that United will be offering two daily flights from Palmdale to SF, also using 50-seat jets. L.A. World Airports and the city of Palmdale are offering United a revenue guarantee of $2.3 million, which of course makes the deal pretty attractive.