Airport Is Stuffed for Thanksgiving : Travel: It was slow going, particularly because of bad weather in other parts of the country, but travelers flowed pretty smoothly.

Morning fog, lines of cars and a few lost bags notwithstanding, the flood of pre-Thanksgiving holiday traffic flowed smoothly through John Wayne Airport on Wednesday, delivering most passengers to their planes and families on time.

But the rush of thousands throughout the day and evening tested the Orange County airport’s limits, which were curtailed by construction of its $310-million terminal project. Waiting rooms, parking lots and food services were packed, and some passengers camped out on the floor, curling up with their suitcases and skateboards until the crowd thinned out.

“Is it always like this?” asked Ali-Ben Dabdout, a sixth-grader at St. Catherine’s Military School in Anaheim who was taking advantage of the four-day holiday break to visit his family in Sonora, Mexico. Behind him, passengers pressed cheek-by-jowl in the Northwest Airlines gate area, waiting for their flight to be called.

Perched on the edge of his skateboard and dressed in full military uniform, Ali-Ben ogled the throngs milling above him. “I’ve been in airports, but I’ve never seen this many people in one,” he said.

He was not alone.

“This is about the busiest I’ve ever seen it,” said Glenn Nelson, an Anaheim resident who came to the airport to pick up a group of arriving Mormon missionaries. Several of his seven missionaries, fresh from Salt Lake City, nodded in agreement as they politely nudged through the crowd to recover their bags.

Across the nation, airports were similarly crowded Wednesday as weather problems added to what had already been expected to be one of the worst holiday travel crunches on record. Thousands of travelers trying to fly in or out of Los Angeles International Airport were put on hold--some for a few minutes, others for a few hours--as some flights were delayed.

By nightfall, automobile traffic around LAX moved at a crawl, the airport’s parking lots had begun to overflow and terminals were full. Despite this, lines had yet to begin forming at ticket counters, baggage carousels, restaurants, pay telephones and restrooms.

“So far, it’s not as bad as we thought it would be,” said an American Airlines reservations clerk at LAX.

Wednesday saw just about as much traffic as the Orange County airport gets. Officials predicted that nearly 18,000 passengers--about 5,000 more than normal--would pass through the airport Wednesday as travelers struck out for their holiday destinations. Actual results won’t be tallied for days, but airport officials said traffic appeared to be as predicted--somewhere between heavy and record-setting.

Funneling the extra passengers through the always-crowded terminal would be hard enough under normal circumstances, but construction at the airport compounded the headaches. Work on the expansion, scheduled for completion next year, has narrowed car lanes entering the airport, forcing vehicles to merge and backing up traffic as they do.

There were lines of cars piling up in front of the terminal, and while extra police officers shepherded them along, it was occasionally a losing battle against gridlock. As quickly as the officers could shuttle one burst of cars past, they would turn to confront the next.

The airport’s metered lot next to the terminal, where many drivers park when they come to meet arriving passengers, filled several times during the day. Officers had to close it, which added to the jam. Then, just as the afternoon traffic began to swell into a mob, an emergency call brought out the Fire Department, and its truck parked smack in front of the airport’s trademark John Wayne statue.

As it turned out, little was required of the paramedics who came to the rescue.

“We had a woman suffering from a minor pain,” one Fire Department official said as he left the building. “She was advised to see a doctor.”

But the truck snarled traffic for more than an hour, at times backing it up well out onto MacArthur Boulevard.

For the most part, passengers and the drivers who came to meet them waited patiently. All afternoon, the front of the airport was dotted with travelers sprawled with magazines and newspapers.

“The people are courteous, the red caps are courteous, everyone’s handling this pretty well,” said George Tepich, a Costa Mesa resident who arrived several hours early for his flight to Chicago. “I remember when this airport was little, almost quaint. Even with these crowds, it’s still my favorite.”

Inside, travelers arrived in waves, offering little respite to harried food service workers who struggled to deliver Bloody Marys and lunches as fast as eager customers downed them.

“Yesterday it was just swamped, and today it’s much heavier,” said Anita Lewis, assistant manager at Delaney’s, the airport restaurant. “Our breakfast started kind of slow, but it couldn’t be more packed right now.”

Typically, Delaney’s serves about 100 lunches on a weekday, Lewis said. On Wednesday, they expected to break 300.

With customers lined up outside Delaney’s door, some turned away in annoyance.

“Twenty minutes?” asked one woman with four young children in tow, two of whom darted into the hall every time she looked away. “How am I going to wait 20 minutes with these guys?” she asked before trundling across the terminal to join the formidable line at the snack bar.

Times staff writers Darrel Dawsey and Eric Malnic in Los Angeles contributed to this story.

BUSIEST DAYS AT JOHN WAYNE AIRPORT

Thanksgiving weekend, 1988, set records for the number of passengers using John Wayne Airport when 75,523 customers passed through the gates over a six-day period, an average of 12,587.

Passenger traffic 43% above the 1989 daily average of 12,400 is expected on Wednesday, Sunday and Monday.

Date: Passengers

THANKSGIVING 1988

Wednesday, Nov. 25: 16,968

Thursday, Nov. 24: 8,306

Friday, Nov. 25: 6,123

Saturday, Nov. 26: 8,871

Sunday, Nov. 27: 17,571

Monday, Nov. 28: 17,684

THANKSGIVING 1989 (Estimated)

Thursday, Friday or Saturday: 6,000-8,000

Wednesday, Sunday or Monday: up to 17,700

Source: John Wayne Airport