Why this matters
Carlsbad residents want more local control over an airport that is rapidly increasing its flights, as well as the size of those flights.
Nestled in the coastal city of Carlsbad sits an airport with close to 500 flights each day.
Residents knew about McClellan Palomar Airport when they bought their homes — they even signed a document acknowledging it. But while the airport has been in service since 1959, the flights and their size have increased in recent years.
That could spike higher on Wednesday, when the San Diego County Board of Supervisors is set to approve a three-year lease for United Airlines. That would add an additional four flights serviced by planes that can seat upwards of 70 passengers each day.
Just like when the Board of Supervisors approved American Airlines’ flights in January, the county and the Federal Aviation Administration said San Diego has no authority over flights, even at an airport that it manages.
Should the FAA deem the flights safe, the county risks being considered discriminatory if it rejects United’s plea. The United flights are already being sold online.
Another thing the county does not have control over is where and when an aircraft can fly. Palomar Airport only has a voluntary curfew between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. for jets and 12 a.m. to 6 a.m. for propeller aircraft due to a law passed in 1990 stripping airports that did not already have a legally binding one of their power to enact them, The same goes for the airport’s authority to manage aircrafts’ flight paths, which residents say are far different than the established routes.
That leaves Carlsbad residents — an estimated 30,000 of whom are affected by the airport, according to the advocacy group Palomar Airport Action Network — with little recourse over local infrastructure that they say bombards them with noise and environmental effects throughout the day and night as the planes get bigger and more frequent. They also worry that as air traffic increases, there will be safety concerns that will drive even more growth. And with a 20-year expansion plan approved for the airport, residents see their problems only getting worse.
“I bought my house knowing what the airport was,” said Shirley Anderson, a Carlsbad resident who sits on the Palomar Airport Advisory Committee. “I didn’t look into the crystal ball to see what the airport could become.”
San Diego International Airport, the primary airport serving the county, is the busiest single-lane airport in the country. The county completed a nearly $4 billion terminal renovation in November, but airport officials have said there is no ability to create a new runway and expand.
Palomar Airport has a history of commercial flights dating back to 1991. Those lasted until 2015, when United Airlines pulled out because it was switching to larger aircrafts that would not fit on the runway.
The return of commercial flights does not necessitate an expansion, but Palomar Airport does have room to do so. The county in 2021 approved a 20-year plan for Palomar Airport, which includes a runway expansion that could add an additional 900 feet in length, as well as the possibility to upgrade the airport’s classification.
The local group Citizens for a Friendly Airport filed a California Environmental Quality Act lawsuit against the county over its approval of the American Airlines flights. It claims that the county did not prepare an adequate environmental report.
“The Project’s significant direct, indirect, or cumulative adverse impacts on the environment give rise to Respondent’s legal obligation to prepare an environmental impact report specifically for the Project,” the complaint said.
Carlsbad joined the lawsuit in November, claiming that the approval did not comply with its conditional use permit of the airport.
The county said it does not comment on pending litigation.
The airport is accommodating more planes with even more passengers.
In the past decade, the number of takeoffs and landings at Palomar airport has increased by 30%, reaching an average of 480 flights each day this year and likely exceeding 175,000 flights total for 2025.
Meanwhile, the number of passengers is expected to quadruple from last year to this year alone, even as the number of flights barely increases. The county projects 66,202 passengers in 2025 compared to the 15,477 people in 2024.
The county does not track the number of people getting on private charter planes.
Those numbers suggest that the flights out are larger and carry more passengers. The county dashboard also tracks the types of aircraft that operate at the airport, but the largest category is “other,” making it difficult to track. It categorizes American Airlines’ Embraer 175 flights in the E170 category. There were over 100 flights in August.
Worth noting: The number of flights were higher in previous years but dropped down to 135,000 in 2015, when commercial service ended. It became somewhat steady in starting in 2019 somewhat steady before it increased by 20% between 2023 and 2024.
Residents say what bothers them isn’t just the sheer number of flights at the airport, but the number occurring late at night and in early morning.
Between January and October, there were more than 1,000 flights during the airport’s voluntary quiet hours between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. – more than three a night on average.
But some months were busier. In October, for example, there were over 128 flights, which is more than 4 flights per night.
The American Airlines 76-seat planes to Phoenix take off daily at 6:40 a.m.
As the flights rise, so too do complaints filed with the county.
The county projects a total of almost 4,000 complaints in 2025, which is over one and a half times higher than the 2,442 complaints in 2024.
The most complaints are about propellers, which reached a peak this year at 513 in September. Jets and helicopters each had under 10 complaints that month.
Both the county and the residents agree that the data does not tell the full story. The county data said that 31% of complaints were from three callers, and filters the top three callers’ complaints to the average number of complaints by the other callers.
Residents say most people who have grievances have given up on submitting formal records.
“People give up. They don’t get any responses whatsoever to their complaints – never – so it was kind of a waste of time,” said Dom Betro, who is part of the advocacy group Palomar Airport Action Network.
Expansion plans
Residents worry that what they are currently experiencing is only the beginning.
The County Board of Supervisors adopted a 20-year master plan for the airport in 2021. It includes the potential to change the airport’s classification from a B-II, which is designated for smaller aircrafts, to a D-III airport, designed for larger aircraft with higher speeds. The plan said that the county cannot make that change without first getting a modification to its conditional use permit with the city of Carlsbad.
At the time the master plan was approved, close to half of the business jets at the airport exceeded the design standards.
The airport’s single runway is 4,897 feet long and 150 feet wide. The master plan includes extending the runway 200 feet to the east.
Carlsbad has opposed changing the airport’s classification or extending its runway. The city also maintains that the county’s approval of leases for American and United airlines requires its final sign-off.
“As the airport’s host city, the City of Carlsbad has consistently asserted its role and jurisdiction in making final land use decisions, including for new or expanded airport land uses,” Carlsbad Mayor Keith Blackburn wrote in a November letter for an airport meeting.
The county said that neither the current American nor United flights require any changes to the current airport. It also said that the proposed changes to the runway would not automatically mean airport facilities could handle large airplanes like 737’s.
Residents do not trust that.
“What they’re going to do then is they’re going to come back and say, ‘you know what, you’re right. This is a problem, and therefore we need to extend the airport even further. We need a longer runway, we need a bigger airport, because that’s what will make this safe,” Betro said.
They also want a meeting with the FAA to discuss their concerns. They finally secured that in October, but it was postponed due to the government shutdown.
For now, neighbors are left with little else to push back on the expansion plans besides the Palomar Advisory Committee, a nine person committee appointed by the Board of Supervisors. Those meetings are known for being contentious, and lack the power to make any concrete changes besides an advisory role.
Thus, neighbors remain frustrated with a lack of power over an airport that affects their daily lives. Carlsbad has a conditional use lease of the airport, but it is the county that manages it and supports its infrastructure, and the FAA that makes decisions on flight activity.
Whether or not the people of Carlsbad are able to gain more control over the airport will play out in the courts, where the next hearing will take place Dec. 19.
Type of Content
News: Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
