A Sticky Situation at Airport : Travel: Passengers are stuck for hours due to resurfacing problems on the main runway. ‘On-time’ flight messages add to confusion.

Thousands of frustrated passengers were delayed for hours Monday when John Wayne Airport was virtually shut down after asphalt on the main runway failed to stick.

“We’ve repaved the runways before. What the problem was this time we’re still trying to determine,” said airport spokeswoman Pat Ware. “The resurfacing is a routine operation, but the problems we encountered were not. Murphy’s Law was alive and well here this morning.”

According to Ware, the airport had just begun the first day of the $8-million resurfacing project from 11 p.m. Sunday to 7 a.m. Monday. But as they day progressed, the airport was closed first to incoming flights and then to all flights, as workers rushed to scrape off the faulty asphalt.

The delay annoyed crowds of passengers, many of whom had been dropped off by friends and relatives after they saw electronic airport signs that said their flights were “on time.”

“This sucks!” said Mike Porter, 40, who was accompanied by John Warrick, 33. The two men, both state Caltrans employees, said they were part of a special team taking soil samples for a new bridge near Martinez in Northern California. They had to be in Oakland before midnight.

“We’re scheduled to begin work at midnight on the 680 Freeway,” Porter said. “I’ve never heard of an airport having this kind of problem.”

Porter and Warrick said their flight originally was scheduled to leave at 12:15 p.m. But by 3:30 p.m. they still were waiting. They said Alaska Airlines had made arrangements for a bus to Long Beach Airport, and from there, they were to board a flight to Oakland--about five hours later than expected.

Ware said officials don’t know what went wrong with the resurfacing of the 5,700-foot runway, the one used by all commercial airlines. Although Monday’s hot and humid weather may have exacerbated the problem, airport officials were investigating whether materials were at fault, Ware said. The resurfacing was done by Griffith Co., a private contractor.

The airport opened at 7:22 a.m. Monday, before officials knew the size of the problem. Because the contractor still needed about 45 minutes to finish the day’s work, airport officials decided to halt flights from 9:05 to 9:49 a.m.

But while workers were doing those final touch-ups, they discovered the problem with the asphalt and realized that the whole runway would have to be scraped.

At 9:49 a.m., the airport opened to departing flights only, because they use only the beginning of the runway, which did not affect the work. All incoming flights, however, were diverted.

But at 1:30 p.m., departing flights were halted, too, as the scraping progressed.

The airport reopened at 5 p.m.

A total of 74 arriving flights and 55 departing flights from 10 airlines were either delayed, diverted, canceled or rescheduled, Ware said. Because the airport’s shorter runway was not affected, all five commuter airlines conducted business as usual, Ware said.

“We’re annoyed,” said Diane Woodward of Dublin in Northern California, who was with her husband, Tony. “We got dropped off here, and before our relatives left us, I got out of the car and checked the sign. It said, ‘On time.’ We grabbed our bags, and said goodby.”

But after they waited in Alaska Airlines’ check-in line for a 2 p.m. flight to Oakland, Woodward said, a counter agent told them that no flights would be leaving the airport.

Ware said she did not know why the airlines, who are responsible for their own electronic arrival and departure signs, didn’t update them. But, she said, “the airlines had their hands full.”

“It was horrible,” said Barbara Levy of Costa Mesa, who was flying to Orange County from New York on Northwest Airlines Flight 125 scheduled to arrive at 1:15 p.m. She was put on another airplane to Los Angeles International Airport, but no one from the airlines was there to help them.

“When we got off the plane there was supposed to be a bus for us. But there was no one there to meet us--nothing,” Levy said.

Levy and a group of other passengers jumped aboard a shuttle van--at a cost of $15 each--and got to Orange County at 3 p.m.

“It was complete incompetence,” said George Meisinger of Huntington Beach, who rode with Levy. “We paid extra to come to Orange County and we ended up in Los Angeles.”

Departing passengers like Peter and Gloria Jackson were looking at a wait of more than nine hours at John Wayne for a connecting flight to Las Vegas which finally would hook up with a plane to Atlanta--their ultimate destination.

The Jacksons had spent 17 days in Newport Beach and all went well until they arrived at the airport for their ride home on America West Airlines.

“They have us between a rock and a very hard place,” Gloria Jackson said.

For Maureen Warden, 33, of Placentia, the afternoon was spent keeping her son, Donny, 5, entertained.

Warden’s mother was scheduled to arrive from the East Coast aboard an American Airlines flight that had been diverted to Los Angeles International Airport. The flight was an hour late arriving at LAX. From there, her mother was expected to board a shuttle for John Wayne.

“I got here early at about 1:15 p.m. to make sure I had plenty of time. Then, this happened,” Warden said.

Airport officials originally planned to have workers resurface the runway during the night from now until November. That work has been discontinued until they find out what caused the asphalt to resist sticking to the runway, Ware said.