More billboards approved for LAX but they're still years away

The Los Angeles City Council Wednesday approved a legal framework to add as much as four football fields' worth of digital and other billboards within LAX, however, it could be years before the first signs flash on.

The plan, more than 11 years in the making, sets the maximum square footage of digital and non-electronic signs that could be erected on airport property. The digital signs would be on the parking structures, bridges and terminal walls visible from the traffic loop. Non-digital signs would also be hung from pillars, walls and other surfaces.

Up to 181 jetway bridges that passengers use to get onto planes from terminals would each have two non-digital signs.

Some of the ad revenue from those billboards would be used to buy out and dismantle many of the billboards in neighborhoods around the airport. About 20,000 square feet of billboards would come down.

But those changes won't happen fast.

Official needs up to two years to set design standards for the LAX billboards, hire a manager to oversee the ad sales, and do all the prep work to install and power the signs.

LAX will have about five years from when the first digital signs go up on airport property to use ad revenue to start taking down the older signs in surrounding communities.