Morning Fog Delays Flights at John Wayne

Fog besieged John Wayne Airport again Saturday morning, delaying flights and leaving the terminal jammed with holiday passengers for the second time in three days.

But the fog lifted earlier than it did on Thursday, allowing the first of 10 waiting airliners to take off at 8:44 a.m.

“It looked like a London parade out on the taxiways--everyone lined up waiting to go,” said Carol Brown of the airport operations office.

She said the terminal “was packed wall-to-wall. . . . I couldn’t believe it when I got here at 6 this morning. The terminal was full.”

Unlike Thursday, when Los Angeles International Airport and Lindbergh Field in San Diego were shut down as well, John Wayne was the only Southern California airport affected by fog on Saturday.

Clear All Day

Control tower supervisor Mark Morgan said Lindbergh Field was “wide open” Saturday afternoon and had been clear all day. But, he cautioned, “you get the right conditions and the fog can form in five minutes.”

The National Weather Service predicted more fog for today but said it would lift early and that skies would remain cloudy the rest of the day. Fair skies were predicted for Monday.

On Thursday, pea-soup fog at John Wayne, Los Angeles and several other Southland airports forced thousands of holiday travelers to be delayed, re-routed or grounded.

The thick fog also curtailed airport operations in San Jose, Reno and Eureka, and weather conditions at airports in Seattle, Sacramento and Medford, Ore., were described by one airline official as “marginal.”