Originally Posted by L-1011
SNA (John Wayne, Santa Ana, Orange County - take your pick) airport closes at 11PM nightly for take-offs and re-opens at 7AM Monday through Saturday and 8AM on Sundays. Apparently landings are allowed some time after 11PM and in the good old days when we still had the propeller commuter A/C they could take off before 7AM (but not by much).
Yep -- our flight was the last one in awhile back -- arriving at 10:50 pm. Most of the airport was dark and empty and they were clearly waiting for us to pass thru so they could close down.
My husband is a private pilot. You CAN land there after 11 pm and trigger the runway lights to come on -- as long as your plane is reasonably quiet.The tower closes @ 11 pm and the airlines cannot land because of noise (the limit is 86 decibels or less).
We also found out that early flights slated for 6:30-7 a.m. departures do NOT leave on time. Flights can't leave till 7 a.m., so they line up for take off. NEXT time....I can sleep in a few more minutes 
Last edited by ALadyNCal; Apr 8, 2006 at 12:36 pm