John Wayne Flights to Average 78 a Day Over Next 3 Months

Airline departures out of John Wayne Airport will average 78 per day between now and March 31, airport officials announced Thursday.

Flights by jets noisy enough to fit under the airport’s noise regulations will be 60.5 per day, slightly more than the 55 departures authorized under a recent legal settlement with airport neighbors in Newport Beach.

In addition, PSA will be allowed to fly up to 18 daily departures with its smaller, four-engine BAe-146, which can take off at noise levels lower than those normally regulated by the airport.

Could Have Been 95

The allocations announced Thursday are substantially lower than the 95 flights per day that could have been approved under guidelines adopted by the Board of Supervisors in mid-December.

But many airlines chose not to use the number of added flights theoretically available to them only until the end of the airport’s operating year in March, according to airport manager George Rebella. “This is what they felt they could handle,” he explained.

The temporary flight increases will use about one-third of the estimated 3,285 departures that were not flown by the airlines earlier in the year.

The flights are available at the end of the year because the 55-per-day flight maximum established under the legal settlement actually pertains to “average daily departures” over a year.

However, Newport Beach officials have complained bitterly about the added flights, claiming that they violate the spirit of the agreement signed last month which effectively removed Newport Beach’s opposition to limited expansion of John Wayne Airport over the next 20 years.

47 by the Nosiest

Most of the additional flights, about 47 a day, will be flown by the MD-80, the noisiest jet now using the airport. The settlement agreement allowed 36 flights per day for that aircraft.

The remaining regulated flights have been allocated to slightly quieter jets such as the Boeing 737 300, an average of 13 flights per day, compared to the 10 flights normally flown.

AirCal is the big winner in the temporary flight bonanza, with an average of about 7.5 extra flights per day until March.

PSA, AirCal’s major competitor, will receive another 1.5 flights a day--plus the 18 departures permitted by its BAe-146 aircraft. PSA spokesman Bill Hastings said Thursday that the airline currently has plans to fly only about 14 of those “exempt” flights every day until March.

Other airlines with additional flights are American, 1.2 a day; America West, two a day; Continental, 1.15 a day, and Western, 1 every other day.