Short-Term Solution to Airport Parking : Traffic: Expecting more passengers with Southwest’s arrival, John Wayne officials carve out 440 spaces from long-term lots.

Circling John Wayne Airport for available parking is becoming more common for traffic on the ground than for airborne commercial pilots.

With annual passenger counts up to 6.2 million per year and more expected with the arrival of Southwest Airlines this week, airport officials are carving out 440 short-term spaces from existing long-term lots to provide more room for those racing to meet arriving flights.

At the rate of $1 per hour, the additional “super short-term” slots are expected to bring much-needed convenience to what recently has become an exercise in frustration.

The change, however, is expected to reduce annual airport parking revenues by $594,757, a small percentage of the $14 million in fees collected each year.

“The airport continues to be popular with business travelers, but now we’re seeing more and more leisure travelers coming through,” airport spokeswoman Pat Ware said. “As more people come in, we’re also seeing more people who are choosing to seek the convenience of parking here.”

The additional spaces will be provided in the east parking structure, directly across from the main terminal. Currently a long-term lot where motorists are charged a flat fee of $7 per day, the east lot will convert 440 of the 1,122 spaces for short-term users at the $1-per-hour rate.

Until this week, the airport had provided slightly more than 3,000 short-term spaces for users known in airport vernacular as “meeter-greeters.” Those spaces are located on the north and south sides of the terminal, within easy walking distance of ticket counters and gates.

But officials have noticed in recent months that more travelers have been occupying short-term lots for days at a time, regardless of the hourly costs.

At the same time, the airport has been experiencing a steady rise in the number of passengers using the airport, Ware said. Since 1990 when John Wayne opened for business, passenger numbers have increased from 4.5 million to about 6.2 million people each year.

Those totals are expected to swell again this year as popular Southwest Airlines begins service in Orange County on Thursday, Ware said.

“There were just not enough of the spaces to go around,” she said.

In a report presented Tuesday to the Board of Supervisors, airport officials said that parking shortages have left some “meeter-greeters” to circle the terminal in their cars, increasing traffic congestion on the airport roads.

“Things tend to get very busy first thing in the morning with business travelers,” Ware said. “It tends to even out during the middle of the day and then picks up again later.”