OT California Travel advice

[JustAsking]

Long Beach airport is closer than LAX... try Long Beach (my favorite airport to fly out of). So if John Wayne does not work out (best option for you) look at Long Beach 2nd...

If you are using expedia, use airport code QLA to search all of the LA area airports.

 

[HammerDown]

ONT > SNA

Not even close. But I guess it depends on where you are.

 

[BOSSMANPC]

Wow, Thanks a lot people. Some very good info here !! Looks like it's time to circle the wagons eh?

Thanks again to all !!!

 

[DaBoltsNIsles]

Wow, Thanks a lot people. Some very good info here !! Looks like it's time to circle the wagons eh?

Thanks again to all !!!

The biggest plus about John Wayne Airport if you destination is Newport Beach is you're landing in IRVINE, which is very close to Newport Beach.

 

[rares]

I agree on John Wayne, I've flown into all 3 LA metro airports (LAX, Ontario and JW) and John Wayne is definitely the best. Be forewarned though, due to the housing around it, the pilots are required to make a steeper descent in. Not a nice gentle flow, a noticeable drop. At least the last pilot I had kinda dropped it. We weren't expecting it, so it was a little odd. My cousin who was a commercial pilot (now flies Cargo) said he liked flying into there, but then again he's insane. He also liked flying into Denver because of the wind coming up the mountain. He called it "surfing it in".

Yeah, noise ordinance stuff because Newport Beach resident snobs (err... rich folk) don't want to hear all that airport noise -- so takeoffs/landings are steep.

One time I flew out of John Wayne on Southwest, the flight attendant was going over the safety features/rules like they always do and, as the plane was taking off (VERY steep/high angle right off the bat), she goes: "... and if you would like some peanuts, please reach out in the aisle and grab them if you can". And sure enough, she just emptied a basket up front and them little packets o' peanuts ZOOMED right by to the back of the plane. Haha.

 

[Thumper]

I've been to the bay area but never to Newport Beach. I'm flying out there in October and was wondering what is the best airport to fly into would it be LAX?
I know there are some other airports there like Orange county.

I don't think we have a lot of Cali folks here so I may ask at the Water cooler if no one knows.

Thanks in advance



Hey, where's Dave in Laguna?!!

John Wayne Airport SNA Orange County.

 

[Thumper]

Yeah not sure if i'm flying out of Buffalo or going to visit my sister in S Carolina first then I would be flying out of Atlanta or going to see my son and daughter in law (because we are meeting them in Cal) if that's the case I will be flying out of Detroit.

Looks like I will be doing a lot of fare searching.

You will find cheaper fares to LAX than SNA, no doubt but... you will have more ground costs. Shuttle or even rental car. Add maybe two hours to your travel. So it really could be worth it to pay one hundred bucks more or even 150 to fly right there. SNA.

 

[fordman84]

So guys from the LA area, do you not consider BUR as a metro airport? My understanding was you had LAX, ONT, SNA, and BUR with LGB also in the mix.

edit: BUR = Burbank, just in case.

 

[Thumper]

You're doing the Viet Nameasy? I never seem to end up there.

 

[Thumper]

Burbank is a serious airport.

 

[HammerDown]

So guys from the LA area, do you not consider BUR as a metro airport? My understanding was you had LAX, ONT, SNA, and BUR with LGB also in the mix.

edit: BUR = Burbank, just in case.

BUR is great for the valley and points North but from what I understand, it's very difficult to get non-stop flights in and out of there to destinations past LAS. The only time I ever consider it is if I'm flying on Southwest but for me, it doesn't work and if you're flying into the OC, you'd have a helluva time all the way down the 5.

 

[BOSSMANPC]

You will find cheaper fares to LAX than SNA, no doubt but... you will have more ground costs. Shuttle or even rental car. Add maybe two hours to your travel. So it really could be worth it to pay one hundred bucks more or even 150 to fly right there. SNA.

That's what I'm seeing Thumper. It's about $150 more to SNA but with what you and others have said it sounds like it's worth the money. Money is not a problem anyway but we all like to save it when we can but to avoid the LAX headache seems worth it.

Again thanks again all, you've been very helpful. Now I need to hit HD up for a raise.

Thanks again

Steve

 

[Thumper]

I just discovered and like google flights. Just point and click on the map and zoom in. You can see all the towns & airports and prices on the map. I like it better than all the other fare search engines that lack the visuals of maps.

 

[fordman84]

I just discovered and like google flights. Just point and click on the map and zoom in. You can see all the towns & airports and prices on the map. I like it better than all the other fare search engines that lack the visuals of maps.

Not sure you can get all the fares there. Southwest doesn't show there I don't think, but it is great for airport info and locations.

 

[Thumper]

That's what I'm seeing Thumper. It's about $150 more to SNA but with what you and others have said it sounds like it's worth the money. Money is not a problem anyway but we all like to save it when we can but to avoid the LAX headache seems worth it.

Again thanks again all, you've been very helpful. Now I need to hit HD up for a raise.

Thanks again

Steve

Put it this way- I have always flown to LAX- and you probably have to from most foreign countries. And we had a relative who worked for American Airlines so it was always LAX. But now that I will be buying my own tickets and am not as poor as I used to be; I see John Wayne in my future. But LAX and SNA are only 40 miles (forty minutes) apart- so if you were renting a car anyway- not too big of a deal with a much lower fare.

 

[BOSSMANPC]

I just discovered and like google flights. Just point and click on the map and zoom in. You can see all the towns & airports and prices on the map. I like it better than all the other fare search engines that lack the visuals of maps.

Not sure you can get all the fares there. Southwest doesn't show there I don't think, but it is great for airport info and locations.

Are you guy's talking about Google Maps site?

 

[Thumper]

Not sure you can get all the fares there. Southwest doesn't show there I don't think, but it is great for airport info and locations.

Yeah, I'm sure you can end up getting lower fares somewhere else, expedia, priceline, cheapo air, etc but the map feature of google flights is fun to play with. You can zoom out or zoom way in - all over the world!

 

[Thumper]

Are you guy's talking about Google Maps site?

No. I don't think so. for instance, I just typed in LAX to [blank]
and pretty sure an option I hadn't seen before was google flights.

It starts out a map of the USA but you can scroll all over the globe and zoom way in. So it shows all the airports. Any country.

 

[Thumper]

https://www.google.com/flights/

Okay, what is also very cool about it. It doesn't, like a lot of those sites, make too big of a deal about date of travel, etc. You can see fares/flights in seconds without having to enter a lot of information!

 

[fordman84]

Are you guy's talking about Google Maps site?

No, googleflights. You can just type the cities you want to fly between, or you can type "google flight" into the search box and get there.