Charlene Reynolds’ job isn’t for the faint of heart – she manages John Wayne Airport, Southern California’s third busiest airport.
The airport is often the subject of heated controversies involving noise levels in neighboring communities. Its relatively short runway causes steep takeoffs that can terrify first-time fliers.
The airport handled 11.7 million passengers last year and more than 300,000 flights. Its economic impact on the Orange County economy was $5.7 billion in 2022 when the airport contributed $352 million in state and local taxes.
She’s responsible for 174 employees and a $530 million annual budget. She works in a male-dominated industry.
Since Reynolds arrived about 30 months ago, she said the airport’s staff immediately bought into her management style and the goal of prioritizing the passenger experience.
The airport’s operations have significantly improved during her time at the helm of John Wayne Airport, she said.
“It was a lot of working long nights, always showing up. My motto is, ‘every day is a job interview,’” Reynolds told the Business Journal. “Working with that mindset and showing that I had the ability to lead an airport and contribute every single day, that kind of helped me navigate and build my brand.”
Airport Director
John Wayne Airport
The work is being noticed. In September, John Wayne ranked No. 1 in customer satisfaction among large airports in J.D. Power’s 2024 North America Airport Satisfaction Study. The report cited the airport’s excellence in three areas: ease of travel through the airport, arrival experience and level of trust.
One of her biggest accomplishments to date is advancing the airport’s capital improvement plan, which addresses John Wayne’s deferred maintenance projects.
“I came in with a different point of view from the previous directors. That was kind of hard! When you come in and people want to know who are you and what is she going to do, what is she going to change. That didn’t go over too well,” Reynolds said. “It was building up trust. They had to trust in me that I was doing the right things for the right reasons. I had to trust in my employees and help them and give them freedom.”
For all these reasons, Reynolds was honored Oct. 30 at the Business Journal’s annual Women in Business Awards.
Getting Better Restaurants
Keeping the airport’s dining options as up to date as possible and seeking additional routes from the airlines are two other priorities for Reynolds. She’s also working to implement the airport’s sustainability plan (see separate article).
Reynolds, who earned her MBA from the Keller Graduate School of Management of DeVry University, was the chief commercial officer at Houston Airport System, which manages Hobby and Bush Intercontinental airports, and assistant aviation director for business planning at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport.
Reynolds arrived at John Wayne Airport as its director in June 2022.
“If you’re a professional in aviation, it means that you move from airport to airport, where there are opportunities,” Reynolds said.
“Your overall goal is to have your own airport, once you become an executive.”
JWA Works on Sustainability by Cutting Noise, Emissions, Waste
John Wayne Airport’s website says it “has one of the most stringent aircraft access and noise monitoring programs in the United States and, perhaps, the world.”
Airport director Charlene Reynolds wants to reduce the noise even further.
The first step is requiring all aircraft using the airport to update their fleets.
“The emissions and the noise are basically tied, hand-in-hand,” Reynolds told the Business Journal. “Really, it’s working with the airlines to bring in their newer aircraft fleet. We’ve had challenges with Boeing that none of us ever foresaw.
“When I first started, we had about 16% of our fleet that were newer generation. Now we’re standing between 32% and 36%, and we really want to get to 60%,” Reynolds said.
“I devised a plan with our public affairs and our governmental affairs staff to actually start going out and visiting the major airlines at least once a year.”
It’s part of the airport effort to improve its sustainability. It’s composting food waste from the dining vendors and installing electric vehicle charging stations in parking areas. It has a waste diversion program in place where the aviation facility sends edible foods to the community via concessionaire partners.
“We purchase freezers and refrigerators that we install in the airport that make it easier for [concessionaires] to bring their edible items,” Reynolds said.
Local nonprofits then come and pick up the food and distribute it where there is a need.
It’s aiming to improve air quality, cut down diesel fuel usage, reduce traffic at pick-up areas and add a fleet of electric buses. It wants to recycle fuels and oils, prevent storm water pollution and implement pollution prevention protocols. Other sustainability initiatives include re-lamping the airport’s lighting with LED lights and minimizing water usage across the airport.
An Airfield Named After a Cowboy
John Wayne Airport traces its roots to Eddie Martin, then a famous flight school operator who leased airstrip space built on land owned by the Irvine Company.
Orange County acquired the airstrip as part of a land swap in 1939. Commercial flights began in the 1950s and became more frequent in the 1970s. Orange County Airport, as it was called between the 1950s and 1970s, became John Wayne Airport in 1979, named after the famous Hollywood star, who also resided in Newport Beach.
About 95% of the planes now fly over the harbor as they depart JWA, causing a long simmering source of irritation in that city. When the El Toro Marine Base closed in the 1990s, many Newport Beach residents supported closing JWA and turning El Toro into an international airport. They lost that fight.
Edge of Your Seat Takeoffs
The airport has a relatively short runway at 5,700 feet when most other airport runways are about 10,000 feet.
The short runway often causes pilots to start at full throttle for a takeoff that’s almost twice as steep as most airports. The pilots then reduce the jets’ engines around 1,000 feet to limit noise above Newport Beach, often causing surprises among passengers who haven’t flown out of the airport.
“Takeoffs from California’s John Wayne Airport have passengers on the edge of their seats,” said a headline in a July article on the Simple Flying website.
It has 10 “state of the art” noise monitoring stations around the harbor and north of the airport to monitor and track each of the approximate 315,000 air carrier and general aviation operations that occur each year.
Despite its short runway, JWA is Southern California’s third busiest airport in passenger traffic.
Last year, it recorded 11.7 million passengers, a 3.3% annual increase. Under an agreement reached with community organizations, the airport is limited to 11.8 million passengers annually, which could rise to 12.5 million in 2026.
By contrast, Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) serviced about 75 million last year, a 14% increase, while San Diego International Airport had 24 million passengers. Ontario International Airport reported 6.4 million passengers followed by 6 million for Hollywood Burbank and 3.7 million for Long Beach.
Working with the Airlines to Reduce Emission and Noise
The airport is keenly aware of complaints from nearby residents, many of whom have had their homes soundproofed over the years by the airport.
In October, members of the Orange County Airport Use Commission opposed a plan by Irvine to rezone the neighboring Irvine Business Complex to allow 15,000 new housing units. The City Council, by a 5-0 vote, overruled the airport’s opposition.
Reynolds said her staff is working with the airlines to reduce emission and noise with a new plan that could be implemented as early as 2025.
“That’s part of the overall paradigm shift that I bring into the airport. I’ll ask questions, like
‘When was the last time you guys went and visited the airlines?’ Oh, 2019. That’s not enough. We need to be there every year,” Reynolds said.
Electric aircraft could be in the future, as well. JSX is looking into incorporating a fleet of electric aircraft flying in and out of John Wayne Airport, according to Reynolds. She added other airlines are considering hydrogen-powered planes.
“It’s kind of like moving an elephant on the commercial side, but I would hope in the next 15 years that you would probably see the first commercial electric or hybrid aircraft,” Reynolds said.
