John Wayne Airport: The Only Way to Fly

It was founded by a local pilot.  It is named after a celluloid cowboy.  It accepts millions of people through its gates every year.  Its quirky rules and regulations are the stuff of legend. 

While all of these points serve as accurate descriptions of John Wayne Airport, perhaps the most important aspect of this airport originated by Orange County aviation pioneer Eddie Martin is the fact that it is not LAX.

Ask any businessperson who has ever flown out of both airports, and they will tell you without fail how this little element is beyond huge.  It’s an easy rule of thumb, really; if you are flying domestically for business, you do whatever you possibly can within your power to avoid flying out of Los Angeles International Airport.  The entire experience is depressing.  You have the long drive.  Unless you are catching a red-eye, you will have traffic to contend with along the way.  You have to deal with a parking service, because there is no way in the world that you could be cruel enough to ask someone to drive you there.  By the time you arrive at whatever terminal you have to show up at, you already look and feel as if you have been on a plane for six hours.  The airport itself, despite its recent facelift efforts, still remains a shockingly dingy, gloomy, and chaotic series of buildings, both inside and out.  It is a drain on your personality, mental processes, and perhaps even your own will to live.

Contrast this with the experience that can be found at John Wayne Airport.  Even if you live in the far corners of Orange County, you can still get to its facilities relatively quickly.  It’s clean, streamlined, and free from the sketchy clutter that tends to hang over LAX like a squadron of 747s in a holding pattern.  There is a decent chance that you can find a friend, relative, or co-worker to take you to a terminal, because it is so easy to enter and exit its loop.  Once inside, the space seems to be filled with a calming flow that feels properly logical.  Even the dreaded TSA workers seem pleasant.  As a result, you seldom feel frazzled when you board your flight, which will in turn enable your mind to worry about completely blowing that important presentation in a much more relaxed, soothing manner.

Yes, there are frustrating things that you have to deal with when you fly in or out of John Wayne.  The fact that red-eyes are forbidden to take off and land at the venue can negatively impact your travel schedule, especially if you experience a delay coming back into town.  The infamous noise restriction laws that govern the area make taking off from the runway feel less like flying and more like riding on an old-time wooden roller coaster.  Most flights are more expensive than their LAX counterparts.  However, all of these issues run from either being minor annoyances to virtually non-existent if the destination you are travelling to gives you the option to forego a trip to Los Angeles.

When you think of it, the differences between John Wayne Airport and Los Angeles International are almost a reflection of the discrepancies between Orange County and Los Angeles County. The OC is smaller that its northern neighbors and it doesn’t draw as much attention to itself.  Yet it is much easier to move around in, is generally nicer and cleaner in appearance, and contains the ability to make those who come here feel more relaxed.  Indeed, it would be safe to assume that the people who prefer both the OC and John Wayne airport to Los Angeles County and LAX would state similar reasons for their respective prefrences.

As Orange County continues to progress as a national business force, the presence of John Wayne airport as an important transportation hub will only become more prominent.  However, the facility has handled a substantial amount of growth in the past six decades, as it has expanded from managing a handful of flights to Phoenix back in the ‘50s to welcoming hundreds of flights each day.  Judging by how easy and painless the average trip to John Wayne has remained during this time frame, there is little doubt that the general feeling of calmness that the airfield generates will not change.

Then again, if it does manage to be altered, as long as LAX stays the way it is, nobody will likely notice.

By Rich Manning