Two airlines tentatively added to JWA

Paul Clinton

Two discount airlines could set up shop at John Wayne Airport by

summer if the county Board of Supervisors grants final approval to a

plan unveiled Tuesday.

Supervisors tentatively approved adding Denver-based Frontier

Airlines and Chicago-based ATA Airlines based on Airport Director

Alan Murphy’s recommendation to them on Tuesday.

The board is set to consider granting formal approval to Murphy’s

recommendation on July 24. Under the plan, Frontier would be given

three daily flights; ATA would receive two.

The two airlines would fly nonstop flights from Orange County to

Chicago’s Midway International Airport and Denver International

Airport.

“We’re happy to provide additional services to the traveling

public,” airport spokeswoman Ann McCarley said.

The new flights come as a result of the renegotiated 1985

settlement agreement last year between the county, Newport Beach and

two airport groups. By extending that agreement to 2015, the groups

also expanded the airport’s flight capacity.

As many as 85 flights per day and 10.8 million passengers per year

can now use the airport.

Frontier is a discount airline that began operations in 1994. The

airline provides service to 39 cities, including two in Mexico. The

public company offers shares on NASDAQ.

A typical round-trip ticket to Chicago, leaving Los Angeles on

July 11, cost $242. A typical Frontier flight to Denver cost $286.

Both fares were reported on Wednesday on Travelocity.com.

Frontier has been described as “a very safe airline” by Air Safety

Online, a Web site that monitors airline safety records. It has had

no fatal accidents and only a handful of incidents since 1996,

federal records show, including three that the National

Transportation Safety Board considered serious. One of those occurred

Sept. 24, 1997, when a Frontier flight experienced engine trouble

after takeoff.

ATA Airlines, which is also known as American Trans Air Inc., was

founded in 1973. The company is owned by ATA Holdings Corp., a

company also traded on NASDAQ. ATA flies to 40 cities.

ATA, which has also not experienced a fatality in its history, has

been upgrading its fleet.

“It has been shown that newer fleets can marginally reduce an

airline’s accident rate, which is a plus for ATA,” the Web site

reported.

The safety board counts 12 ATA incidents since 1986. Only two of

those were deemed serious. One was turbulence-related. In the second,

on Jan. 13, 1999, a Boeing 727 crushed the hand of a ground-support

worker.

John Wayne managers can’t use these reports to determine whether

to allocate flights to these airlines, McCarley said.

“Under federal law, we can’t legally use the safety record as a

criteria because the federal government regulated safety issues,”

McCarley said. “All commercial carriers must meet federal safety

standards enforced by the FAA.”

Frontier and ATA requested that their names be added to the

airport’s waiting list for flights. The airport added Frontier to the

list on May 15, 2000. ATA was added Jan. 19, 2001.

* PAUL CLINTON covers the environment, business and politics. He

may be reached at (949) 764-4330 or by e-mail at

[email protected].