Flights

Continental Airlines will end its Orange County-Maui service Dec. 31. Started in March 2010, the regular weekend flights will be canceled, according to airport spokeswoman Jenny Wedge. Continental will provide daily Maui service from Dec. 19 to 31, to take advantage of the holiday travel rush. The airline's Orange County-Honolulu service remains unaffected. "It's unfortunate this is ending, as we know there are lots of Orange County residents who travel to and from this area," Wedge said about Maui.

Beginning Monday, United Airlines will be end flights between Orange County's John Wayne Airport and Honolulu, Hawaii, due to a decrease in demand. Some pre-booked flights in June between the two destinations will be the exception. United Airlines spokesman Mike Trevino said that this particular route began in March 2010, just before the onset of a merger in October of that year between United Airlines and Continental Airlines. The merger operated as United Continental Corp. until last month, when the Federal Aviation Administration awarded United Airlines with a single operating certificate.

For a second straight day, some of John Wayne Airport's scheduled arrivals from and departures to Chicago-area airports and other Midwestern hubs were canceled. By about 11 a.m. Wednesday, two United Airlines departures to O'Hare International Airport and one departure to Baltimore were canceled due to the storms hitting the Midwest and Northeast . Additionally, nine arrivals were canceled from various airports. In Chicago, 20.2 inches of snow had fallen through midday Wednesday, prompting airlines based at O'Hare to cancel all their flights until Thursday.

Residents from Newport Beach’s Bluffs neighborhood complain that a corrected satellite-guided takeoff procedure for jets from John Wayne Airport doesn’t shift noisy air traffic from over their heads as the Federal Aviation Administration said it would. In theory, the new procedure, called DUUKE TWO, is designed to shift outbound air traffic an eighth of a mile north toward the center of Upper Newport Bay. Bluffs residents say they still hear constant noise from jets that interrupts their phone conversations and drowns out their favorite TV programs.

A small crowd gathered at the Back Bay View Park on Tuesday, watching as the first flights departed John Wayne Airport and flew correctly overhead. But a few people on hand insisted the situation was an anomaly, perhaps because the pilots knew they were being watched. "I'm personally offended," said Kay Rackauckas, who lives in Jasmine Creek and has complained that for several weeks, flights were veering over Corona del Mar before turning around over the ocean. "All this proves is they can fly straight.

Marisa O'Neil Air travel returned to normal Wednesday after a communication outage grounded flights throughout Southern California on Tuesday evening, canceling 64 flights here in Orange County. It caused later flights to leave after the airport's curfew. The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating why radio communication failed at the Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center in Palmdale for nearly five hours on Tuesday. The outage started just before 5 p.m. and kept hundreds of flights grounded at seven airports until about 8:30 p.m. when communications started coming back on line.

Deepa Bharath The Orange County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved one-year leases for Aloha Airlines -- a decision that will ease the tension of more than 6,000 passengers who have already booked tickets on Aloha's direct flights from John Wayne Airport beginning May 1. "We're delighted," said Glenn Zander, President and CEO of Aloha Airlines. "And we're glad that it's 5-0." The issue was on shaky ground a few weeks ago when Todd Spitzer and Tom Wilson, whose 5th District includes Newport Beach and other South County cities fighting an El Toro airport, said they would oppose the leases if the county pursued shifting the airport's two cargo flights to an airport at the former El Toro Marine base.

Lolita Harper As Costa Mesa residents look to the sky and find more and more planes traveling over their homes, various aviation administrators, city leaders and airport officials are looking to each other as the cause. Federal Aviation Administration officials say changes in airspace have allowed airline pilots to take different departure and approach routes to local airports, depending on specific circumstances. "The whole purpose of making these changes is to give controllers and pilots more latitude in rerouting aircraft to deal with traffic and weather conditions," said Jerry Snyder, the public affairs officer for FAA Western Pacific Region.

A power outage at John Wayne Airport late Monday morning lasted about two hours and delayed a few flights, officials said. Authorities believe it was likely caused by construction on the airport’s B1 parking structure. A full count of how many flights were delayed or canceled is not yet available, but some flights were held more than an hour. On Monday, airport spokeswoman Jenny Wedge had heard four flights were delayed. “My guess is there were at least a few more than that, but it’s hard to tell at this point,” Wedge said.

Lolita Harper Aviation. Education. Collaboration. Those are the key terms surrounding the boost in airplane presence over the city and the steps that should be taken to resolve the quagmire, officials say. Costa Mesa's problem of increased airplane traffic is fraught with confusing terminology, conflicting statements from local airport authorities and local officials who are desperate for some way to ...

Beginning Monday, United Airlines will be end flights between Orange County's John Wayne Airport and Honolulu, Hawaii, due to a decrease in demand. Some pre-booked flights in June between the two destinations will be the exception. United Airlines spokesman Mike Trevino said that this particular route began in March 2010, just before the onset of a merger in October of that year between United Airlines and Continental Airlines. The merger operated as United Continental Corp. until last month, when the Federal Aviation Administration awarded United Airlines with a single operating certificate.

John Wayne Airport passengers should soon be able to jet off to Mexico City and Cabo San Lucas. AirTran Airways, a recently acquired subsidiary of Southwest Airlines, is set to offer the flights starting June 3. Flights to Mexico City are still subject to Mexican government approval, according to a news release. "We are thrilled that AirTran Airways is bringing Orange County our first-ever nonstop service to Mexico," Airport Director Alan L. Murphy said in a prepared statement.

Journalists from Times Community News (TCN) South, which publishes the Daily Pilot, Huntington Beach Independent and Coastline Pilot, are finalists for six statewide journalism awards. Reporters, photographers, editors and graphic designers placed first or second in their various circulation categories in the 2011 Better Newspaper Contest by the California Newspaper Publishers Assn (CNPA). Rankings will be announced at the CNPA's May 5 conference in San Jose. The three newspapers also received nine certificates of achievement.

Some Newport Beach city officials and residents are heading to the Federal Aviation Administration's Los Angeles offices Wednesday to assess John Wayne Airport's controversial one-year-old flight route and to advocate for changes. Since the route was implemented last March, residents from Corona del Mar and Newport Coast have complained of more noise. The meeting comes as the FAA plans for another flight path, one that would apply to the remaining half of all departures. JWA is one of the nation's many airports undergoing a transition to satellite-controlled navigation.

Continental Airlines will end its Orange County-Maui service Dec. 31. Started in March 2010, the regular weekend flights will be canceled, according to airport spokeswoman Jenny Wedge. Continental will provide daily Maui service from Dec. 19 to 31, to take advantage of the holiday travel rush. The airline's Orange County-Honolulu service remains unaffected. "It's unfortunate this is ending, as we know there are lots of Orange County residents who travel to and from this area," Wedge said about Maui.

Southwest Airlines will add two daily flights at John Wayne Airport if the Orange County Board of Supervisors approves the airport's 2012 capacity plan Tuesday. With the added flights, Southwest will further dominate JWA, including at the new Terminal C, which is set to open Nov. 14. This year's distribution of flights comes as officials ramp up for negotiations about the airport's passenger cap and other limits, which expire in 2015. County-run JWA has to operate under an annual cap of 10.8 million passengers to limit impacts on surrounding communities.

Orange County residents can soon go from the beach to the slopes faster than they can change out of a swimsuit and into a snow coat. United Airlines plans to offer skiers and snowboarders seasonal four-day-a-week, nonstop flights from John Wayne to Mammoth Yosemite Airport. "The most important thing about this is it's new, and it provides Orange County travelers additional options to get to their favorite destinations," one of them being Mammoth, said John Wayne Airport spokeswoman Jenny Wedge.

Editor's note: The following are letters from readers about the Daily Pilot's three-part series, School Flight, which was published Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Congratulations on the wonderful and insightful story on Sunday's front page. Staff writer Mike Reicher has done a great service to Costa Mesa to so intelligently and objectively examine a sensitive subject that is often avoided. The editorial was also excellent. The Daily Pilot has really matured under your leadership.

Last of three parts. COSTA MESA - Jill Fales remembers moving to Mesa Verde three years ago and hearing neighborhood parents recite stereotypes in an effort to dissuade her from enrolling her son in the elementary school down the street. Adams Elementary educated too many immigrant children from the city's Westside, they warned. Not enough of them spoke English at home. Classrooms were not competitive for upper-middle class children. So in heeding the advice, the mother of four filled out transfer paperwork to enroll her son at nearby Hawes Elementary, a public school in Huntington Beach.