Residents ask, ‘whose flight is it anyway?’

Lolita Harper

As Costa Mesa residents look to the sky and find more and more

planes traveling over their homes, various aviation administrators,

city leaders and airport officials are looking to each other as the

cause.

Federal Aviation Administration officials say changes in airspace

have allowed airline pilots to take different departure and approach

routes to local airports, depending on specific circumstances.

“The whole purpose of making these changes is to give controllers

and pilots more latitude in rerouting aircraft to deal with traffic

and weather conditions,” said Jerry Snyder, the public affairs

officer for FAA Western Pacific Region. “They are now over areas

where they haven’t been before.”

Snyder said there is no way for his regional office to determine

exactly which flights, from which airports, have contributed to the

increase in air traffic over Costa Mesa, leaving local airport

officials to defend themselves.

Justin McCusker, a spokesman for John Wayne Airport, said he is

confident the flights aren’t coming from the Orange County

transportation hub.

“We’ve been contacted by [Costa Mesa] city officials and asked to

look into this,” he said. “Our tracking technology has allowed us to

determine that the increase in flights is not ours.”

Not surprisingly, the spokeswoman for Long Beach Airport, Sharon

Diggs-Jackson, said much the same thing.

Diggs-Jackson said the Long Beach Airport is being unfairly blamed

for the increase in flights above portions of the city.

The small Long Beach-based airport is an easy target because there

has been talk of growth there but the size of the airport is very

small in comparison to other area airports, she said.

“People need to start looking toward John Wayne and LAX because

that’s what is flying over your house,” Diggs-Jackson said. “I know

that they have way more flights coming over those areas.”

She confirmed that Jet Blue flights coming into the Long Beach

Airport from the east travel over portions of Mesa Verde and the

Westside but said there are less than 10 flights with that route.

“If people are noticing a difference recently it’s not us, because

Jet Blue has been flying the same route since it started with us more

than a year ago,” Diggs-Jackson said.

Councilman Gary Monahan said he is not buying Long Beach Airport

officials’ arguments and places the blame squarely on the Long Beach

Airport.

It is not the flight paths that are the basis of the problem but

the increase in flights on those routes, he said.

A federal court decision resulting from a 12-year lawsuit over a

noise ordinance allows Long Beach to operate 41 daily commercial

flights, officials said. Flights have jumped from 12 to an

anticipated 24 for next month and will climb to a peak of 41 by

October.

Diggs-Jackson said the added flights will not be routed over Mesa

Verde or the Westside.

A Jet Blue media release contradicts her statement.

According to the release, the airline will add service to Las

Vegas, Salt Lake City and New York from its West Coast base in Long

Beach starting Oct. 10. Six daily flights will travel to Las Vegas,

one daily flight to Salt Lake City and fifth daily flight to New

York, the report reads.

All three flights would come from the east and subsequently travel

over Costa Mesa.

Daily flights from Las Vegas are scheduled to arrive in Long Beach

between 7:20 a.m. (except Sundays) and 9:55 p.m. (except Saturdays),

the Jet Blue release outlines. The daily flight from Salt Lake City

will arrive at 7:20 a.m.