Under the 1985 John Wayne Airport Stipulated Settlement Agreement, as amended in 2003, regularly scheduled commercial users operating at JWA shall not serve more than 10.3 million annual passengers in any year beginning on January 1, 2003 through December 31, 2010, and not more than 10.8 MAP beginning on January 1, 2011 through December 15, 2015. To maintain passenger traffic within those limits, and to balance the needs of the Orange County community for adequate commercial air transportation facilities and the desire of the local community for environmentally responsible air transportation operations at JWA, the County, in its capacity as proprietor and operator of JWA, imposed noise restrictions; implemented Permitted Commercial Operations Hours (commonly referred to as a “curfew”); and adopted limits on the noise levels of aircraft operating at JWA, and the number of passengers those aircraft could accommodate in any year.

First, the County placed noise monitors, designated as NMS1S through NMS7S, at seven locations throughout Newport Beach and set noise limits at each monitored location. NMS1S, NMS2S and NMS3S are designated as Criterion Monitoring Stations for purposes of qualifying aircraft to operate at JWA. Under the Plan, if an operator violates the noise levels, the Airport Director “shall immediately disqualify that aircraft type from further service at JWA by that operator”. The Plan also provides for requalification of disqualified aircraft. In addition, the curfew limits Monday through Friday departures to 0700-2200 hours, Sunday departures to 0800-2200 hours, Monday through Saturday arrivals to 0700-2300 hours, and Sunday arrivals to 0800-2300 hours [all local time]. The County has also imposed Permitted Cargo Operations Hours at JWA which require that staging of Ground Support Equipment (“GSE”) on the ramp shall not commence prior to 1545 hours, no cargo aircraft arrivals will be allowed prior to 1600 hours, cargo aircraft departures will not occur later than 1945 hours, and all GSE will be returned to GSE staging areas no later than 1945 hours. Finally, the Plan also includes extensive operations reporting requirements and implements mitigation measures identified earlier in connection with the County’s approval of the JWA 1985 Master Plan and related environmental documents, and projects approved by the County as amendments to the Settlement Agreement. This paper focuses only on the operational capacity allocations sections of the Plan.

The Plan allocates Average Daily Departures (“ADDs”), Authorized Departures, Seat Capacity, Passenger Capacity and Remain Overnight (“RON”) positions among regularly scheduled commercial users at JWA. The Plan also includes regulations regarding Affiliated Carriers and Associated Operating Groups, Capacity Withdrawals, Disqualifications and Reallocations, and penalties for exceeding allocations and violating other prohibitions. Other than the allocation provisions, the remainder of the Plan became effective on August 15, 1990. The allocation provisions became effective on October 1, 1990. The Plan terminates on December 31, 2015. For more information, see complete Summary of the JWA Phase 2 Access Plan.