Orange County is California’s 5th-busiest airport; Southwest is the top airline

California has 30+ airports with scheduled flights. According to Cirium data, Orange County/Santa Ana is the fifth-busiest airport in the state and the 44th-busiest facility nationwide.

The LA Basin airport has 3.36 million departing seats in the first half of 2026 (January-June). Capacity is down marginally year-over-year, but it is 8% above what was available before the pandemic in 2019. It benefited from the arrival of Breeze in 2023.

Southwest is Orange County’s leading airline

When mainline and regional units are included, Orange County is served by 12 passenger airlines. They include JSX, but the airline does not appear on Cirium, so its data is unavailable.

With over a million seats, down by 3% year-over-year, Southwest remains overwhelmingly the leading operator. It has 31% of the airport’s capacity, down marginally compared to the first half of 2025. Orange County is Southwest’s 26th most-served airport out of 122 airports in its network.

It has 11 routes in the examined period. Three are to other Californian cities (Oakland, Sacramento and San Jose), with intrastate activity accounting for over half of its Orange County seats. It has two international routes (Los Cabos and Puerto Vallarta).

Two airlines have grown strongly: Allegiant (+18%) and Breeze (+41%). The latter has eight nonstop routes to Orange County in 2026. Two additional routes start in 2026: Las Vegas on 6 March (mainly daily) and Raleigh/Durham on 29 May (more on that market below).

Phoenix is the most-served market

Including JSX’s network, Cirium shows that Orange County has nonstop flights to 54 airports in the first six months of 2026. They include four international markets: Calgary, Los Cabos, Puerto Vallarta and Vancouver. Virtually all the capacity is domestic (97%), involving 23 states. Some 44% of seats are in California.

With 366,000 one-way seats, Phoenix PHX remains Orange County’s most-served airport. Some 170 one-way flights will be available in April, provided by Southwest (86), American (82) and Frontier (2). Allegiant will soon begin flying to Phoenix AZA, while JSX serves Scottsdale.

Compared to January-June 2025, six airports have joined Orange County’s network, as outlined below. Of these, only Cincinnati has been served before (by Delta until 2009). Tampa flights ended in August 2025.

• 12 February 2026: Pasco/Tri-Cities (Allegiant, 2-weekly)
• 12 February 2026: Phoenix AZA (2-weekly)
• 20 May 2026: Appleton (2-weekly)
• 20 May 2026: Grand Rapids (2-weekly)
• 21 May 2026: Cincinnati (2-weekly)
• 29 May 2026: Raleigh/Durham (2-weekly)