John Wayne Airport

AirTran Airways makes its debut at John Wayne Airport (SNA) on Sunday with nonstop flights from the Orange County airport to two destinations in Mexico: Cabo San Lucas/San Jose del Cabo (SJD) in Baja and Mexico City (MEX). It's the first time the airport has offered regular service between Orange County and Mexico. To celebrate, AirTran will be serving a Mexican-style breakfast at 10 a.m. Sunday and giving out goodie bags for passengers waiting to board the airline's first flights.

If you're flying from Orange County's John Wayne Airport in the next few weeks, you might want to allow more time to get through security screening. Starting Wednesday, security checkpoints at Terminal B will be closed for the next two weeks while upgraded scanning machines are installed, an airport statement says. United and U.S. Airways passengers should still check in at the Terminal B ticket counter but then stroll over to Terminals A or C (about a five-minute walk)

After five years in the works, officials at John Wayne Airport on Monday opened a new multimillion-dollar terminal. But there was one problem: The baggage-handling system wasn't working. Passengers who arrived at Terminal C were greeted with signs saying they had to check in their luggage next door at Terminal B. Airport staff were also waiting for passengers in the new parking structure, where they informed people of the breakdown. Travelers with carry-on baggage were not affected.

Beginning Monday, passengers at Orange County's John Wayne Airport will find more parking, more elbow room, state-of-the-industry check-in kiosks and an array of works from local artists. They'll also find more places to plug in a laptop and more places to lap up a lunch. It's all part of the biggest upgrade at John Wayne since the airport's Thomas F. Riley Terminal opened in 1990, modernizing a facility that has historically carried more cachet than most regionals because of its landmark noise-abatement work in the '80s and '90s.

Travelers will have more room to stretch out and more spaces to park in when John Wayne Airport officially opens its new Terminal C on Monday. Officials this week previewed the building, which has six additional gates, a 2,000-space parking structure and the latest security and ticketing technology. Originally proposed to meet skyrocketing air travel demand, Terminal C opens amid a tepid market and weak economy. John Wayne operates under its limit of 10.8 million passengers annually, but officials expect traffic to pick back up. Terminal C is the capstone of $543 million in airport expansion and renovations first approved by the Orange County Board of Supervisors in 2004.

Step aside, O'Hare. There's a new winner in the busiest-airport derby and it's LAX, which is expected to be the nation's most crowded this Thanksgiving. Coming in next are O'Hare, Orlando International in Florida and San Francisco International, according to the annual Orbitz Insider Index. Among the least-busy airports? LAX's little sister, John Wayne Airport in Orange County, San Jose International and Maui, Hawaii. The travel company compiled its list of the busiest and least-busy airports based on flight reservations made via Orbitz between Nov. 23 and Nov. 27 at the top 50 airports in the nation.

Just as the U.S. hotel industry begins to recover from the recession, industry leaders say they are being sabotaged by the Obama administration. The charge centers on a new rule proposed by Obama's Office of Government Ethics that would prohibit most federal employees from accepting free admission to conferences and other gatherings held by businesses or organizations that lobby the government. The American Hotel & Lodging Assn., the trade group that represents the nation's hotels, blasted the proposed rule, saying it is unneeded and would prevent federal employees from mingling with people to learn about trends and problems in the country.

The Transportation Security Administration plans to install full-body scanners to screen passengers at John Wayne Airport in the coming months, federal officials confirmed Tuesday. Scanners are planned for security checkpoints at all three terminals, including the new Terminal C set to open in November. Travelers randomly selected to undergo the body scans can opt to walk through the traditional metal detectors and receive a manual pat-down instead, according to the Daily Pilot. A recent public backlash about the machines' graphic depictions prompted the TSA to alter the images the scanners produce.

When John Wayne Airport 's new terminal opens in November, it will add two commuter terminals, six gates and four new art displays. The works, some of which come from national and local museums, join the 9-foot statue of the namesake actor and might warrant a visit to the Orange County airport -- whether or not you are flying somewhere. "In Plane View" from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., was on display there a few years back.

Former NBA player Javaris Crittenton , who was suspended from the league for having guns in the Washington Wizards' locker room with teammate Gilbert Arenas , was arrested Monday night in Orange County to face a murder charge in an Atlanta shooting, an FBI spokeswoman said. Crittenton was taken into custody about 8 p.m. at John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana after checking in for a Delta Air Lines flight to Atlanta, spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said. Eimiller said he was arrested without incident by FBI agents with assistance from the Orange County Sheriff's Department.