JWA sees 1% annual passenger increase

John Wayne Airport experienced a mere 1% increase in annual passengers this year, but neighbors still worry about the airport’s effect on their quality of life.

About 9.85 million passengers used the airport from April 2007 to March 2008 — about 500,000 less than the cap of 10.3 million established in 2003.

That number is up from the 9.76 million passengers identified in the airport’s 2006-07 figures, spokeswoman Jenny Wedge said.

In spite of the incremental growth, Wedge said airport officials estimate the facility could manage only 10 million passengers a year before passenger services were adversely affected.

A scheduled passenger cap increase in 2010 and the construction of a new terminal in 2011 will allow the airport to service even more passengers, she said.

That prospect worries Liz Parker, who lives under one of the airport’s flight paths on Costa Mesa’s East Side.

She and her neighbors frequently joke that they don’t have to look at their watches to know when it’s 7 a.m. — the first roars of the morning’s takeoffs are indication enough.

“In East Costa Mesa, most of us have these large backyards and enjoy an outdoor kind of lifestyle,” she said. “We just did a remodeling of our backyard, and it’s certainly difficult to enjoy it now.”

“People don’t seem to realize there are a number of indirect effects [besides noise],” she said. “It’s one of those things that won’t affect food on your table or crime in the street, so all of a sudden people wonder ‘How did my air quality get so bad? Why can’t I use my pool because there is jet fuel residue in it?’”

Activists with AirFair, a community group opposed to expanding the airport’s growth beyond existing agreements, said the numbers did not surprise them.

“For an airport in an affluent community, we can only expect growth,” Nancy Alston said. “While we haven’t grown to the absolute maximum, that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t hit those levels sometime in 2008.”

Wedge responded that the airport carefully monitors its levels, and has no intention of growing beyond 10 million annual passengers before the airport could safely handle such an amount.

CHRIS CAESAR may be reached at (714) 966-4626 or at chris.caesar@latimes.com.