Late-night flights could soon become reality at Palomar Airport

More flights may be coming to McClellan-Palomar Airport, with the latest one landing after the airport’s voluntary curfew for jets of 10 p.m. 

American Airlines is seeking to renew its lease with San Diego County, this time adding two daily round-trip flights to Phoenix, Arizona, at the Carlsbad airport. The latest flight will land at 10:30 p.m. That’s in addition to American Airlines’ existing two round-trip flights, the earliest of which takes off around 6 a.m. each day. 

The Palomar Airport Advisory Committee, a group of appointees of the Board of Supervisors, is set on Thursday to recommend the county approve the new lease. 

The Board of Supervisors is tentatively scheduled to discuss the lease at its May 6 meeting, County Spokesperson Donna Durckel said. In the past, both the county and the Federal Aviation Administration have said that San Diego County 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 airlines’ leases. 

One new American Airlines round trip flight would start May 7, and the other would start May 21, according to the Palomar Airport Advisory Committee’s agenda. The first year of the lease would bring in $1.1 million, the agenda said. 

Unenforceable curfew

A 1990 law passed by Congress prevents airports without an existing curfew from imposing mandatory hours for flight operations. That left Palomar Airport, which did not have an existing curfew, with only a voluntary curfew between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. for jets and 12 a.m. to 6 a.m. for propeller aircraft.

The lack of curfew has taken on greater urgency in the past year with the return of commercial flights to the Carlsbad airport. The airport did not have commercial flights between 2015 and February 2025, when American Airlines began its flights. San Diego County has appeared unable to get commercial airlines to agree to fly during specific hours.

When the Board of Supervisors approved a two-year lease with American Airlines in January 2025, the airline did not agree to the county’s initial request to move its flight during the quiet hours at the time.

When the county approved United Airlines flights in December, a United Airlines representative said that she could not agree to Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer’s request to promise not to fly during the night in the future. 

“It’s really a business decision of an airline or a commercial operator when they need to depart the airport,” Jamie Abbott, the director of San Diego airports, said at an FAA discussion about Palomar Airport in January. “We can’t discriminate on telling an aircraft when they can and cannot fly.”

Surrounding residents have noise complaints

The lack of a real curfew is a central issue for surrounding residents of the airport who have filed numerous noise complaints and several lawsuits in recent years. They say they’ve been woken up by flights in the middle of the night, and they worry the recent return of commercial flights will only make it worse. 

“We’ve seen a tenfold increase in flights in the early morning hours, and this is gonna do it on the other end,” said Dom Betro, who leads the Palomar Airport Action Network. “They’re going to have flights all night. It’s horrible. The way they’re going about this. Complete disregard. And we think it’s also unsafe.”

To get a mandatory curfew is no easy feat. It would require either an act in Congress or a process known as “Part 161,” which is essentially an appeals process with the FAA. 

U.S. Rep. Mike Levin, who represents southern Orange County and North San Diego County, including Carlsbad, said that passing legislation through Congress would be “incredibly difficult.” He pushed for an appeals process through the FAA. 

The FAA said at its January discussion that no one who has ever applied through them has succeeded. 

In the meantime, the Palomar Airport Advisory Committee is working on a program that recognizes pilots who fly during daytime hours in an effort to incentivize voluntary compliance.