San Diego is home to one of the nation's busiest single-runway airports.
Lindbergh Field has a combined 530 arrivals and departures every day. So repaving the airport's runway presents a unique challenge.
But it's one that is now being done.
Crews are closing off the runway from midnight to 5 a.m. at least six times a week, repaving small portions of the 9,400-foot-long, 200-foot-wide runway. Work started in November and should last through next October.
It's a $22 million project paid for mostly through FAA grants.
Airport spokeswoman Rebecca Bloomfield says the work shouldn't impact flights unless there's a freak delay. The runway has a hard closure from midnight to 5 a.m. nightly.
"Passengers shouldn't notice anything because it's happening during hours when the airport's technically closed," she said.
So far, only one flight, a British Airways plane to London, has been canceled because of the work.
The airport currently has four scheduled departures after 10 p.m. However, 27 planes are scheduled to land after 10 p.m. If they're not landing by midnight, the airline would either have to cancel the flight, or reroute to Orange County, Ontario, or Los Angeles.
The first two diversions happened Friday. Bloomfield said two flights from the east coast were delayed because of weather and diverted to LAX and Ontario.
The project also is switching out the old-incandescent lights with more energy-efficient LED lighting.
