John Wayne Airport

What's the biggest problem facing Newport Beach today? I mean for the people who live here. You and me. C'mon, give me a straight answer. I'm taking a poll. Think about it for a while if you must. It's a little disheartening — even for deaf people like me — if the answer doesn't leap out at you. So let me give you some clues. This is the sort of man-made disaster that we can prevent from happening. We can't prevent tidal waves or typhoons or hurricanes or earthquakes.

Back from combat in Afghanistan and having just landed at John Wayne Airport after a flight from North Carolina, U.S. Marine Andy Krikorian struggled to stay awake while his dad drove him to their Costa Mesa home. It was late Friday, about 10 p.m., when the Krikorians turned onto Presidio Drive from Newport Boulevard to get to their home on Coronado Drive. The flight had been delayed about an hour. That didn't matter. Everyone waiting for the 27-year-old that night would've waited no matter how long it took.

Starting Sept. 7, John Wayne Airport will offer its first nonstop commercial service to and from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. Delta Airlines will operate once daily flights between JFK and the Orange County gateway aboard a Boeing 737-700, said Jenny Wedge, John Wayne Airport's spokeswoman. Only one other carrier serving John Wayne offers nonstop service to the New York area, Wedge said. Continental Airlines flies to Newark Liberty International Airport from JWA. The new connection will replace Delta's nonstop flight from JWA to Detroit, Wedge said.

When a hospital or a school fails so miserably, officials usually rename it. The stakes in this case may not be life or death, but the Federal Aviation Administration has completely re-named the take-off procedure at John Wayne Airport. Now called STREL, the proposed route could be better received than its predecessors, DUUKE 1 and DUUKE 2. Newport Beach residents complained that those routes resulted in more noisy flights over their homes. Administrators are now back to the drawing board with their satellite-based flight navigation system.

An electrical contractor struck a gas line at John Wayne Airport at about 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, forcing authorities to block traffic into part of the airport and evacuate some areas, according to emergency responders. No one was injured by the leaking gas. By 8:30 a.m. workers from the Southern California Gas Co. had capped the 2-inch line and vehicle traffic was allowed to flow again, airport spokeswoman Jenny Wedge said. No flights were canceled, but some may have been delayed as passengers had trouble reaching the terminal, she added.

Orange County is breaking out of its insular self as John Wayne Airport prepares for the possibility of international flights to Mexico and other destinations in Central America, which would follow in the contrails of JWA's new once-daily service to Toronto. Construction began Tuesday on a walkway that will connect the airport's Terminal B to Terminal C, the future 280,000-square-foot facility featuring six new gates, which will go along with new international flights, said Jenny Wedge, the airport's spokeswoman.

The home page of the website for AirFair, the group working to improve your quality of life by trying to limit passenger levels at John Wayne Airport, features this quote by Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” A quick label for Melinda Seely, AirFair president, and Jean Watt, a board member, would be “activists,” but...

While residents of the Bluffs neighborhood in Newport Beach claim that the number of noisy jets flying over their homes hasn’t changed since the Federal Aviation Administration introduced a new takeoff procedure at John Wayne Airport, homeowners in the Irvine Terrace area claim they’ve noticed a big difference. Residents from the neighborhood on the east side of Newport Bay, which is bordered by Bayside Drive and Pacific Coast Highway, say that many of the jets taking off from John Wayne now turn east directly over their homes.

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.