logo   Seat Allocations at John Wayne Airport
The Newport Beach agreement:

The 2002 Settlement Agreement amendment between the county and Newport Beach limited John Wayne airport to serving 10.3 million annual passengers in 2003 and 10.8 MAP commencing in 2011.

The agreement limits passengers. Limits on the number of seats, including empty seats, that the airlines can fly is a restriction unilaterally added by county officials to facilitate staying below the passenger caps.

Staying below the MAP cap:

As a consequence of the airport management and the Board of Supervisors limiting the airlines' seats, and flights, and not allocating the full passenger cap, hundreds of thousands fewer passengers have been served at John Wayne each year than the number allowed by the settlement agreement.

The following table gives the Board of Supervisors’ seat capacity allocations to the airlines since the passenger cap was reset to 10.3 MAP. The table includes the airport manager's predictions of passenger count for the allocations recommended and the actual passenger results measured at the end of the year. (The airport manager has some discretion to adjust the allocations during the year and to withdraw or add allocated seats when he deems it necessary.)
BOS action date Board of Supervisors
Approved allocation per JWA Mgr's recommendation		 JWA Mgr’s predicted passengers for plan year at the time of BOS action Actual passengers
for year		 MAP cap
per Agreement between County and Newport Beach		 Difference: Actual passengers less than
allowed MAP cap
Board of Supervisors
Approved allocation per
JWA Mgr's recommendation		 JWA Mgr’s predicted passengers for plan year at the time of BOS action Actual passengers
for year		 MAP cap
per Agreement between County and Newport Beach		 Difference: Actual passengers less than
allowed MAP cap
JWA Mgr’s predicted passengers for plan year at the time of BOS action Actual passengers
for year 
 MAP cap
per Agreement between County and Newport Beach  		Difference: Actual passengers less than
allowed MAP cap
Plan year April 2003 - March 2004 January 28, 2003 12,284,920
Carrier seats  + 333,795
Commuter passengers		 8,000,000 8,790,734 10,300,000  -1,509,266
2004-05 January 13, 2004 12,532,078
Carrier seats  + 523,309
Commuter passengers		 8,700,0000 - 9,300,000 9,379,772 10,300,000 -920,228
2005-06 Feb. 8, 2005 12,771,764
Carrier seats + 488,607
Commuter passengers		 9,600,000 9,605,194 10,300,000 -694,806
2006-07 Feb. 7, 2006 12,771,764
Carrier seats +500,000
Commuter passengers		 10,038,690 9,765,238 10,300,000 --534,762
2007-08 Dec. 19. 2006 13,182,672                      Carrier seats + 500,000 Commuter passengers 9,600,000 9,855,800 10,300,000 -444,200
2008-09 Jan. 15, 2008 12,872,800
Carrier seats +453,950 commuter passengers      		 10,028,984  8,649,514 10,300,000  -1,650,486
2009-10 Jan. 13, 2009 12,546,808
Carrier seats +468,735
commuter passengers		 no public forecast 8,803,059 10,300,000 -1,496,941
2010-11  Jan. 12, 2010 11,988,350
Carrier seats + 238,746
commuter passengers		 no public forecast 8,660,631 10,300,000 - 10,800,000 increased mid-plan year January 2011

9 months                                 April 2011-Dec 2011             Jan 11, 2011   8,780,754                       Carrier seats + 166,460 commuter passengers 6,625,387 for 9 months partial year not applicable not applicable
Calendar 2012 October 4, 2011 11,735,392                     Carrier seats + 152,000 commuter passengers no public forecast 8,857,944 10,800,000   -1,942,056
2013 October 2, 2012 12,208,004                     Carrier seats + 123,201 commuter passengers 9,222,121
10,800,000

 

County procedures for implementing the agreement:

The county developed the Commercial Access Plan and Regulation as it's procedure for allocating the number of passengers stipulated in the Settlement Agreement amongst the various air carriers. The Board of Supervisors can modify the procedures so long as they do not conflict with the Settlement Agreement.

The access plan allocates passengers to commuter airlines but seats to air carriers. For more on this arrangement see Footnote below:

The allocation of seats necessitates predicting airline load factors months in advance in order to keep the passenger count within the limits of the Settlement Agreement.

Forecasting of the relationship between passenger and seat counts is very difficult due to factors – such as aircraft configuration, timetables, ticket prices and industry factors - that are beyond the airport’s control.

In order to play it safe and not exceed the Settlement Agreement limit for passengers, the airport historically has maintained a cushion in its seat allocations. Airline requests for additional seat allocations or flights have, at times, been denied in the effort to stay below the MAP cap.  Alternatively, air carriers have been kept on the JWA new entrant waiting list and not allowed to serve the airport.

For example, Aloha Airlines stopped operating in the early part of Plan Year 2008-09. Air Canada, which had been on the JWA waiting list for 7 years, was not assigned a seat allocation until after the Board of Supervisors acted on the subsequent Plan Year 2009-10 allocations.

Airlines have been fined for exceeding their allocation even though the airport was operating well below the allowed MAP cap.

This website’s position:

The Settlement Agreement is the rule and we do not propose that it be disregarded.  However, the access control plan devised by the airport can be modified.

So long as 10.8 million passengers want to fly from John Wayne and the airlines want to provide the service, they should not be denied access.

If the county would exercise its discretion to modify the airport's Commercial Airline Access Plan and Regulation so as to make the full MAP cap available, the airlines might benefit, the airport could generate more revenue and the flying public would enjoy better service.



Footnote: This December 2, 2007 email from Jenny Wedge, Manager of Public Relations to this website's editor – discussing the county's procedures for allocating seats rather than passengers - is reproduced in its entirety.

Leonard:

On November 10, 2007 you asked a number of questions regarding the allocation of operating capacity at John Wayne Airport.  I have spoken with our Airport Access and Noise staff and am pleased to provide the following:

1.    “What prevents the airport from making passenger allocations to all airlines, up to the total number of passengers allowed in the settlement agreement, thereby avoiding the seat capacity allocation process?

Capacity allocations are currently governed by the Phase 2 Commercial Airline Access Plan and Regulation.  The current version was approved by the Board of Supervisors.  The Access Plan specifically requires the allocation of seat capacity. 

2.    If the answer is that the seat allocation process is specifically required by agreement between the settling parties, what document requires this, and why could it not be amended by the parties if the concept of a passenger allocation system is more workable? 

Although the Access Plan currently provides for the allocation of seat capacity to air carriers, nothing in the Settlement Agreement prohibits the County from allocating passenger capacity instead of seat capacity.  However, if the County determined that it was interested in allocating to the air carriers in this manner, a number of substantial revisions would be required in the Access Plan. In connection with this process, it would be important to provide the air carriers and other interested parties with an opportunity to provide input on the possible revisions to the allocation process and to discuss whether the added assurances provided by allocating passenger capacity outweigh the flexibility and assurance of providing the maximum amount of available capacity at the Airport that is provided by allocating seat capacity.

Your e-mail also states that “it is reasonable to ask whether it is better to allocate passengers rather than seats to the air carriers.”  I thought it might be helpful to share some of the logic behind the concept of allocating seat capacity.

As you know, in addition to an allocation of Regulated Average Daily Departures (ADDs), air carriers must also receive an allocation of seat capacity.  This seat capacity reflects the specific equipment each air carrier intends to use during the Plan Year.  Once the seat capacity necessary to support the intended operation of the Regulated ADDs is allocated, the County allocates additional seat capacity to requesting airlines up to the level at which the County believes will allow it to remain within the Settlement Agreement Million Annual Passenger (MAP) limitation.

This additional (“supplemental”) seat capacity is allocated annually, and is an important basis for the operation of Class E aircraft by the air carriers at JWA.  All Class E operations (with the exception of the recently created Permanent Class E ADDs) are based upon supplemental operating capacity in the form of “seats.”  In the event circumstances indicate that the annual MAP limitation may be exceeded, this supplemental seat capacity is the county's “safety valve” for first withdrawal of capacity to remain within the MAP limitation. 

The county's position has long been that there is a tradeoff between allocating seat capacity versus passenger capacity. More certainty could be provided with respect to compliance with the MAP limitation without the possibility of withdrawals by allocating passengers, but this would likely result in less Class E capacity available to the air carriers.  Allocating seats, however, provides the County with the flexibility to maximize capacity allocations for Class E operations while still providing a safety mechanism for withdrawal of this capacity, if necessary.

It is important to note that allocating passenger capacity would ensure MAP compliance without the possibility of capacity withdrawals.  It would, however, also take away the county's flexibility in ensuring that the maximum capacity is flown each Plan Year.  In order to maintain that flexibility, the County would have to consider the same two variables used in allocating seats, i.e., average passenger (instead of seat) capacity of the ADDs and the average annual load factor.   

In sum, the allocation of seat capacity (instead of passenger capacity) creates a mechanism that:
•    provides the maximum feasible flexibility to the air carriers in selecting the mix of aircraft types used by them in their service at JWA;
•    ensures that the maximum amount of available capacity is used to serve the air traveling public; and
•    provides a fair mechanism by which air carrier capacity reductions can be effected if the County determines that reductions are necessary to ensure adherence to the MAP limitation.
January 9, 2008
rev. April 8, 2008
rev. May 3, 2009
rev. December 11,2009
rev. March 30, 2013