Editorial:

AirFair, a local airport watchdog group, has proposed an intriguing remedy to help muffle the noise in local skies: Ontario.

AirFair hopes that by offering rides and discounted tickets, Disneyland-bound air passengers will choose the more-distant gateway in San Bernardino County instead of John Wayne Airport.

A recent survey found that 1.3 million passengers to JWA are going to or coming back from Disneyland — no small segment of the airport’s 9 million annual travelers.

It’s no secret that JWA is congested, having surpassed its capacity of 8 million annual passengers years ago. Diverting some of those Disneyland-bound passengers to the roomier Ontario airport, which has a shortage of passengers for its size, is an interesting idea. Los Angeles World Airports — which owns the facility — is considering offering passengers shuttle services to Disneyland from Ontario, as well as discounted airfares and admission to the resort in Anaheim.

Of course, the Ontario airport is more than three times as far from Disneyland as JWA, a fact to consider on our infamously congested freeways.

For their part, JWA officials say they are working hard with the city of Newport Beach and other affected communities to keep passenger volume at the airport capped at 10.3 million through 2010 and 10.8 million through 2015, caps placed on the airport through a federal court agreement.

While we applaud AirFair’s diehard efforts to bring calm to the skies above Newport-Mesa, we hope they’ll also think through some of the possible economic implications of encouraging passengers to use Ontario as the welcome mat to the House that the Mouse Built.