Santa Monica Airport: A Century of Aviation History and a Landmark Closure
Santa Monica Airport (former IATA: SMO) occupied a remarkable place in California aviation history before its closure in December 2028 following years of contentious debate between the City of Santa Monica and the aviation community. For nearly a century, SMO served as one of Southern California's most historically significant general aviation facilities, operating on a site where Douglas Aircraft Company — later McDonnell Douglas — produced some of the most important transport aircraft in aviation history, including the DC-3, which literally transformed commercial aviation worldwide. The airport's 5,000-foot runway accommodated everything from student pilots making their first solos to corporate jets serving the entertainment and technology executives of the Westside.
The closure of Santa Monica Airport followed a long legal dispute between the City of Santa Monica and the FAA, which for decades argued that federal airport improvement funding obligated the city to keep the airport open. A 2017 settlement agreement ultimately allowed the city to close the airport, converting portions of the site to a park and mixed-use development. The loss of SMO removed a critical general aviation facility from the densely populated Westside of Los Angeles, forcing pilots and operators who had based at Santa Monica to relocate to Van Nuys (VNY), Hawthorne (HHR), Torrance (TOA), and other surviving LA Basin airports. The airport's legacy lives on in the Douglas Aircraft history embedded in the surrounding area's aerospace heritage, and the Westside aviation community continues to mourn the loss of one of California's oldest and most beloved GA airports.
When did Santa Monica Airport close?
Santa Monica Airport officially ceased operations at the end of 2028 following a multiyear transition period that began with a 2017 settlement between the City of Santa Monica and the FAA. The settlement allowed the city to shorten the runway starting in 2017 and to ultimately close the airport entirely. The closure ended nearly a century of continuous aviation operations on the site.
What famous aircraft were built near Santa Monica Airport?
Douglas Aircraft Company, which was headquartered adjacent to the Santa Monica Airport site, produced the legendary Douglas DC-3 at its Santa Monica facility. The DC-3, introduced in 1936, is widely considered the most important commercial transport aircraft ever built — it made commercial aviation economically viable and served in virtually every major air force and airline in the world. The Douglas legacy is inseparable from the history of aviation on the Westside of Los Angeles.
What replaced Santa Monica Airport?
The City of Santa Monica developed plans to convert the airport site into a large urban park, with additional mixed-use development on portions of the property. The approximately 228-acre site is one of the largest urban redevelopment opportunities in Los Angeles in decades. The Douglas Park mixed-use development adjacent to the former runway area had already been under development before the airport closed.
Where do Westside pilots fly from now that SMO is closed?
Westside-based general aviation pilots now primarily use Van Nuys Airport (VNY), Hawthorne Municipal Airport (HHR), and Torrance Municipal Airport (TOA). Some operators relocated to Long Beach Airport (LGB). The closest alternative for many former Santa Monica-based pilots is Hawthorne, which offers the most convenient access from the coastal Westside communities.
Santa Monica Airport Contact Information
Address, Phone Number, and Hours for an Airports in Santa Monica, California.
| Name | Santa Monica Airport |
| Address | 3223 Donald Douglas Loop South, Santa Monica CA 90405 Map |
| Phone | (310) 458-8591 |
| Website | |
| Hours |
Map of Santa Monica Airport
Airports near Santa Monica
SMO's Aviation Legacy and the Ongoing Impact of Westside Airport Loss
The closure of Santa Monica Airport reverberated across the Southern California general aviation community in ways that continue to be felt years later. SMO had been home to dozens of flight schools, charter operators, corporate aviation tenants, and individual aircraft owners who together generated hundreds of millions of dollars in local economic activity annually. The airport's proximity to the entertainment industry's Westside headquarters — talent agencies, studios, streaming platforms, and production companies all clustered within a few miles of the runway — made it the airport of choice for private jet operators serving entertainment executives who valued the ability to park on the Westside rather than drive to Van Nuys or Burbank.
Aviation historians and preservationists mark the Santa Monica Airport closure as a significant loss not just operationally but symbolically — the site where Douglas Aircraft's DC-3 transformed commercial aviation is now a park, erasing the physical connection to one of the most important chapters in American aviation history. The Tuskegee Airmen flew DC-3s and other Douglas products; the Berlin Airlift operated C-47s (the military DC-3 derivative); and countless airlines around the world owe their birth to the economics that the DC-3 made possible. For those interested in Los Angeles aviation history, the Museum of Flying, which was based at Santa Monica Airport, relocated to Santa Monica's airport-adjacent facilities to preserve this history even as the airport itself passed into the record books.