7. A Long Goodbye For Santa Monica
After a harrowing back and forth with the city of Santa Monica, the FAA and the general aviation community, the city of Santa Monica, which clearly hates GA and cares not a whit for its rich aviation heritage, “won.” The FAA, which had previously been pushing Santa Monica to keep its small oceanfront GA airport open, swapped sides and without warning gave in to the city’s evil plan to shut down KSMO. The negotiated plan is for the city to lop off a third of the runway (to keep most light jets away) and to bulldoze the strip altogether by 2028, allowing pilots to enjoy SMO for another nine years before it becomes the latest downtown GA airport to go away.
