JWA ready for the rush on Fourth

Jimmy Stroup

John Wayne Airport’s security process has been upgraded to handle the

excess travel that the Fourth of July holiday weekend -- and summer

in general -- brings through its gates, including eight new lanes

into checkpoints to help lessen wait times.

“The addition of the new lanes provides us flexibility into the

future growth of the airport,” said Justin McCusker, JWA’s spokesman.

The addition of more than 3,400 square feet of space in the

departure area of the airport was approved in March, at a cost of

$4.5 million. The project was completed last month, doubling the

space available for screening, according to McCusker.

The travel traffic so far has been lighter than expected, though,

according to the people on ground.

For 13 years, Mike Kline has been a driver for SuperShuttle, a

transportation company that offers service to and from homes and

airports. “They predicted it would be busy, but it’s really been kind

of slow -- especially for a holiday weekend,” he said.

Paul Jones, who has been at JWA for 18 years working for SkyCap

International, said he hadn’t noticed any overwhelming traffic for

the holiday, either, though he had noticed the faster security

screening and check-in times.

“It’s picked up -- better since 9/11,” he said. “Not back to where

it was before, though.”

Security has been, and remains, a primary concern at JWA. McCusker

said the airport has remained at a heightened level of security since

the 2001 terrorist attacks.

He said that JWA has shown improvement every month in terms of

traffic, and said he doesn’t expect it to let up.

“Each month this year has been a significant increase over the

same month last year,” he said. “It’s very possible that this will be

a record year for the Fourth of July weekend.”