John Wayne Airport

SNA-ATL-FOR on Delta. We were staying in Ontario but flew out of SNA rather than ONT due to flight schedule and prices. It's a relatively small easy to use airport at least compared to LAX. Rental car return facilities are in the basement of the parking structure immediately across the street from the main terminal so after returning your car you just need to walk to an elevator go up a few floors and cross the main airport roadway at the arrivals level to the terminal. No need to take the shuttle bus of the individual rental company (like at LAX) or a consolidated rental car shuttle (like at ONT). Line through security was short. There seemed to be a dearth of rest rooms in the departure area and options for food were located in the food court area at the far end of the terminal from where we were leaving so we got in a fair amount of walking.

This is my home airport too. But much as I love it a few warnings are in order. You won't find many discounted flights in or out because there is such limited access for airlines. Noise abatement means that flights do not take off until 7am even if the carrier shows a 6:45am departure on their web site. So many flights leave then that you'd better allow a lot of time for getting through the line to check luggage and then circle through security at that hour. Parking is extremely convenient if you use the lot across the street and costs $17/day. Bathrooms are clean and food service though limited to a few places is acceptable. Baggage arrival can vary tremendously. I've arrived at 9:30pm and waited for 40 minutes for my bags to hit the carousel with only one more flight arriving at the same time and UA unable to answer us as to what was happening. This wasn't a single occurrence -I'd estimate it happens 20% of the time. Also your plane won't be allowed to land after something like 10:30pm for the same noise abatement issue mentioned above ... folks in Newport Beach don't want jet noise over the mansions. So if you have a late flight in and there is a weather delay out east you could be diverted to LAX. This happened to us November 2004. A gorgeous day at DFW and a rain storm here. We approached SNA tried to land and the pilot pulled the plane up and said there was too much rain on the runway. We went to LAX sat for 45 minutes and tried again ... same result. This time we stayed at LAX and that began the saga of AA not handling our diversion well ... another story. Moral is: try not to be on the last flight into SNA if you can avoid it. All things considered though my personal favorite. If I haven't checked luggage I'm in my car within about 8 minutes from the time I exit the plane's door and on the freeway in another 5 minutes. It's worth the ticket price premium!

It's small and easy to get around bags come off planes fast and it's a lot more manageable than LAX. Of course it's also more convenient if you have business in Orange County. Not many food choices however. Security moves reasonably briskly and there's almost no traffic at the airport in the early morning.

Orange County/John Wayne/Santa Ana/Costa Mesa airport is a well-thought out O&D airport. It is my home airport and I have come to love it. They struggle with rush hour security but otherwise there is not much to complain about. Clean pleasant and nice!