Last Nail in John Wayne (Airport)’s Coffin

  1. They raised the price of on-site parking, again. This time to $20. In 2001, it was $10.
  2. They’re closing down one of the four on-site parking structures entirely. They already maimed two of the four (read: removed the 25% of the parking spaces that were closest to the terminal) in an effort to undo 9/11 after the fact. Unexpectedly, seven years later, 9/11 still hasn’t been undone. It still happened. Darn.

The previous changes to parking availability (along with an increase in flights out of SNA) has already resulted in insufficient mid-week parking. I’ve experienced not finding any parking in any of the four on-site lots (yes, I ignored the “Lot Full” signs in order to verify that there really wasn’t any parking available), then driving to the off-site lot only to find that it, too, was full. And it’s not like there are private lots set up around SNA to handle overflow parking. (Yet.)

“Fortunately”, they’re opening up a new “Lot C” off-site. Except that they’re going to charge the new $20 rate, despite it being off site.

The upshot is that my decision-making airport-choosing flow has now changed.

  • If there’s a non-stop from SNA to destination, fly out of SNA.
  • If there’s not a non-stop from SNA to destination, but there *is* a non-stop from LGB, LAX, or, heck, even ONT, don’t fly out of SNA. (There’s never a non-stop out of ONT. That was just me being silly.)

And cops who cause traffic jams on the 5 South at 10:45 on Sunday nights in order to park on the shoulder and spend ten minutes verifying that a stalled vehicle on the shoulder is, in fact, a stalled vehicle parked on the shoulder should be [your favorite violent past-tense verb goes here].

bkd