Changes at Orange County/John Wayne Airport

[Another Voice]

I don’t usually post over here, but I thought I’d pass on some news since this is happening in my backyard and may impact a lot of people here.

A new series of security measures have been put in place at Orange County (John Wayne) Airport. All of then entrances to the airport are now closed and barricaded except for the southern most surface street entrance, the one off Campus Drive. The access road and parking at the airport are both extremely close to the terminals and is causing some concern thanks to those medieval rodents that are running about. The dedicated freeway offramp from the Costa Mesa Freeway (55) has also been closed; you are now must exit on MacArthur Blvd. off the San Diego Freeway (405). These changes were made to allow for the searching of vehicles entering the airport.

The airport is now suggesting that passengers plan to arrive at the airport 2 ½ hours before your departure in case there are delays. Changes to rental car drop-off and pick-up locations are also being considered. Also being considered are further changes to the Main Street long term parking lot (it sits right at the end of the runaway and is directly underneath the planes on landing). Traffic around the airport has noticeably increased since these changes were put into place.

By the way, I didn’t find any changes during a recent trip through LAX.

 

[jimmiej]

Thanks for the heads up. DW & I will be there in two weeks.

 

[preb]

We just flew out of SNA this morning. As we were leaving the DLH, we heard on the radio to expect 2 hour security delays as they were searching cars. We freaked because it was 7 am and we had an 840 am flight. We just made it. Our car was not searched, but the line inside to go through security was the longest I've ever seen. Definately arrive 2 hours before a morning flight. One of the security guards said it was always crazy until around 10 am.

 

[Michelle]

Although SNA is a much smaller airport it actually takes us LONGER to get through parking and security there than it does at LAX. I flew out of SNA last weekend before the additional security precautions were added and it wasn't too bad, but these new steps will definitely add time to the check-in process.

The nice thing about SNA is they have valet parking and it's only $20 per day, which is pretty cheap by California airport standards. It helps if you're in a hurry.

 

[NHLFAN]

We also departed via SNA this morning and had the TV and Newspaper crews filming us as we went throught the vehicle search line.

No they didn't check out our car but it looked like they were looking for someone/something as we drove slowing thru.

It didn't bother me a bit...made me feel alot safer!

 

[Another Voice]

Having spent far too many years as a frequent flyer out of that airport, the secret is to avoid the morning rush hour. The airport has restricted hours of operations; nothing leaves before 7:00am. Because the airlines know they can get good loads of full fare business travelers in the morning out of Orange County, they actually fly more planes in at night then there are gates. From about six o’clock on they load up plane after plane, move one out and stuff another in. In short, there are probably about 30 or so flights scheduled to leave in about a ninety-minute period.

After about nine or so, all the flights from the east and mid-west start to arrive. You can usually get some good flights on their outbound legs if you wait until about 11:00 am or so. By then the morning rush is gone by then and there’s no morning traffic on the freeways either.