The 100-Yard Tarmac Dash Joins County’s List of Bygones

The phone call from my editor came at 9:15 p.m. one night. “Can you catch a 9:30 plane to Phoenix?”

I live about 5 miles from John Wayne Airport, and if I pushed the speed limit, I could possibly get there before the plane left, I replied. Why?

No time to discuss the assignment now, the editor said: “We already made a reservation for you. Get on the plane and call us from Phoenix.”

My adrenaline was racing almost as fast as my car’s engine as my husband drove me to the terminal’s doorstep, depositing me just a few feet from the ticket counter. The airline workers were less flustered than I. They smiled, calmly prepared my ticket and called for the plane to wait for one more passenger. I ran across the Tarmac as the door to the jet popped open, just for me, and we were off. Fifteen minutes after that phone call, I had caught a plane; a few hours later, I got the story.

I doubt that a reporter or anyone else will be able to catch a plane in quite the same way beginning today, when the new, improved, $63-million passenger terminal at John Wayne Airport opens its doors. No longer will we rush through a tiny terminal, across the asphalt and up staircases pushed against planes. We will navigate our way through a stylish facility 12 times larger, and the trek across the Tarmac will be replaced by a walk along enclosed jetways, just as those found at nearly all metropolitan airports these days.

The old terminal was cramped, outdated, worn--and personal. The new one promises to be big, modern, glitzy--and impersonal. Kind of like Orange County itself, as it has grown through the years.

I insist to newcomers in the newsroom that I am much too young to be considered an old-timer in this county. But the truth is, I have seen incredible changes. My family moved here in 1961; our house had a view of a huge open field that is now the Westminster Mall. I remember walking to school past fields of cabbage and tomatoes--expanses of land now occupied by homes and mini-malls. Many of the now-jammed freeways had not been built. If we wanted to see a play or a movie premiere, we drove to Los Angeles.

I can’t remember when I caught my first flight out of John Wayne Airport--then named Orange County Airport--but it could not have been for a trip farther than to the Bay Area. For years it was unheard of to fly out of state from Orange County. And while the terminal certainly did not appear to be state of the art, neither did it seem to be a Third World airport, as it has been described. It was just Orange County.

Seventeen years ago, when I flew off to college in Columbia, Mo., I took it for granted that my journey would begin at Los Angeles International Airport. Last week, as I made arrangements for my first return to my alma mater since graduation, I was amazed to find that my family can depart from Orange County’s airport.

That amazement continued as I was sent out to the airport last week for a story on the old terminal. Many of the travelers I interviewed came from or were headed to Minnesota, Dallas, Houston--places that never used to be listed among the airport’s arrivals and destinations.

The fate of the now-vacated terminal is uncertain, the subject of ongoing study by the county. One possibility is to use the building for general aviation offices and services. Whatever the decision is, I hope it includes keeping the second-story outdoor observation deck open to the public. There have been times when I’ve driven with my young son to the airport, not to catch a flight but just to stand up there and watch the planes--big and small--take off and land, while passengers walk to and from their flights. It’s one of the best people-watching spots in the county.

A co-worker--a relative newcomer from the East Coast--wonders how people can feel nostalgic about the dingy little terminal. After she flew out here the first time, she told friends back home that it was “hard to take a place seriously that has a statue of John Wayne in its airport.”

I’m not consumed with nostalgia over the old terminal. It was hugely unpleasant to walk across the airfield to catch a flight in the rain. And I remember one weekday morning when, waiting for a first-out flight, the waiting area was a claustrophobic crush of business travelers and briefcases, with not one spare seat or square foot of standing room to be found.

Still, if I ever again get a late-night call asking me to hop on a plane that is leaving in 15 minutes, I wonder whether the dash would be successful. In my rush, I’d probably drive to the wrong level at the new two-story terminal or enter at the wrong end. And if you have to run across an airport to catch a flight, nothing beats the footing of Tarmac.