The Brief

Walk into Rustic Canyon on Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica any evening between 5 and 6:30 p.m., and you'll find chef Elijah DeLeon plating birria de res the way his Jalisco-born grandmother taught him. Meanwhile, at Seline, on Main Street, chef Dave Beran is fortifying a dish with eucalyptus because "when it rains, Topanga Canyon smells like eucalyptus."

On Montana Avenue, the line at Bread Head is full of locals ordering their second turkey pesto focaccia of the week. And at Xuntos, a Spanish tapas restaurant housed in a building as old as Route 66 itself, near the Promenade, chef Sandra Cordero is serving percebes — goose barnacles — to a dining room that hasn't stopped filling since the Palisades Fires hit.

A new generation of Santa Monica chefs have gravitated to the neighborhood because, they say, it offers something often rare today — community. Meanwhile, their top-tier skills are helping turn it into one of the city's diing destinations.

Alex Williams/Jordan Snyder, Bread Head

Alex Williams and Jordan Snyder opened Bread Head in Santa Monica in 2024 after four years of pop-ups perfecting their "Frankenstein focaccia."

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Will Blunt

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Courtesy Bread Head

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Bread Head's mozzarella sandwich on their signature "Frankenstein focaccia"

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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In 2019, Alex Williams and Jordan Snyder earned a Michelin star together at Trois Mec, the 24-seat tasting-menu spot in Hollywood. But for years, the duo had been dreaming of opening a sandwich shop together, viewing fine dining as a precarious enterprise. "People run down the list of restaurants,” says Williams. “You typically try that place out, and maybe you come back once more." Plus, with a newborn at home, the demanding hours meant he was "going down a path of not being around."

In 2020, after Trois Mec closed during the pandemic, they pivoted to pop-ups, crafting what Williams calls their "Frankenstein focaccia" — inspired by an Italian kebab shop sandwich he'd become obsessed with during a trip to Italy. What mattered most was "the balance of bread to filling ratio" and achieving a "nice crispy texture... like the underside of Pizza Hut pizza... that lacy kind of buttery crust." The recipe, tweaked through countless batches at his house during the pandemic, would become the foundation for every sandwich at Bread Head.

After four years of pop-ups, they found a spot on Montana Avenue. "Once I saw Montana, it just clicked," Williams says. "People spend all day down here between Pilates, nails, salon, coffee, and lunch." Opening their first brick-and-mortar in 2024, they quickly expanded to Manhattan Beach and Westwood over the next 15 months. But it was the regulars who surprised him most. "Some locals come in twice a week, and you get to know these guys... how was your trip to Italy? How are the kids?" Williams says. "That's really special." Turkey pesto, his least favorite sandwich, became their top seller. "You can't always cook for yourself," he laughs.

Chef Dave Beran, Pasjoli and Seline

Chef Dave Beran of Pasjoli and Seline in Santa Monica.

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John Troxell

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A dish from Seline's autumn menu, where Chef Dave Beran says "seasonality meets surrealism."

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Pete Lee

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Courtesy Seline

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When you ask Chef Dave Beran to share his personal story, it resembles something like a plot line from The Bear. After spending 10 years with Chicago's Alinea group — a three-Michelin-star destination for modernist cuisine — Beran moved to Los Angeles in 2016, part of a wave of chefs making similar moves. "L.A. felt very much like something sparked... like this magic, like I felt in Chicago in the early 2000s," he says. But it wasn't downtown that called to him. After a lease in the Arts District fell through, Beran found himself cycling around Santa Monica, slowly falling in love with Main Street. "One of the few streets that really felt like the neighborhoods I knew," he says. "I wanted to become part of a community, not just someone living there."

In 2019, he opened Pasjoli with a simple vision: a neighborhood bistro serving refined French cuisine through the lens of California produce. Five months later, the pandemic hit. Like other restaurants, Pasjoli was on the verge of closing. "It felt like there was a community here that wanted us to survive," Beran says. "And we did."

After a successful five years, in 2024, Beran hit reset. While sitting at the bar with his 3 year-old-daughter, he had a moment of clarity. He realized the restaurant had drifted into being "a little more fine dining and a little less approachable," he says. "It had become the place I don't wanna go to all the time anymore."

He closed for three weeks to reconfigure, returning with a menu that Pasjoili. A few months later, he opened a second restaurant, Seline, also on Main Street. It was the opposite of Pasjoli — a 16 to 22 course journey ($295 per person) that Beran describes as "where seasonality meets surrealism," harking back to his modernist Alinea days. The Autumn menu alone tells the story: leek with eucalyptus and banana, Dungeness crab with smoked pork, coffee paired with caviar. "The last thing I wanted was a restaurant that you could pick up and put anywhere," Beran says. "I felt it was very important to be representative of where we are — but not in a predictable way. For me, it was finding my own storyline through my life that related to what exists here now." At Seline, Santa Monica isn't just an address — it's an ingredient.

Beran believes the neighborhood is now destined for gastronomic greatness. "We're two more restaurants away from this being one of the best dining destinations in the city," he says. For Beran, that tipping point isn't a question of if — it's when.

Chef Sandra Cordero, Xuntos

Chef Sandra Cordero brings the flavors of her childhood summers in Galicia to Xuntos in Santa Monica.

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Courtesy Xuntos

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Xuntos' menu features Galician specialties including pescaíto frito, empanadas gallega and fresh seafood.

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Courtesy Xuntos

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Chef Sandra Cordero spent her youth in Amsterdam, but it was summers in Galicia with her Spanish father that shaped her. For six to eight weeks each year, she'd find herself in a tiny village of 500 people, walking cows to fields and absorbing a food culture that stuck. "Childhood memories of Coruña... a seaside town close to the beach, going from one place to another, eating tapas," she recalls. "I love eating for six hours."

After a decade at Gasolina Café in Woodland Hills, Cordero, who moved to New York in 2001 before coming to L.A., had long wanted to serve the food she grew up with. Santa Monica called for two reasons: beach culture ("tapas close to the beach... that was the feeling I wanted") and the renowned Wednesday farmers market ("reminds me of home, it's my people, it's my family.") She opened Xuntos, (pronounced shoon-toess), , which opened just a few blocks from the Promenade, before Gasolina closed in early 2025, marking Cordero's full transition from the San Fernando Valley to the Westside.

The menu philosophy mirrors that of Galician fish shops: "just a little plancha and steamer... really simple, getting the best ingredients... not so fussy." True to that spirit, the menu features percebes — goose barnacles flown in from Alaska — alongside pescaíto frito, empanadas gallega and fresh shell beans from the farmers market for fabada, a hearty Spanish stew from the Asturias region made with white beans, chorizo, morcilla and pork.

Xuntos is housed in a 1926 building — turning 100 this year — and Cordero explains that the vibe is both modern and nostalgic. "I think it's my European looking for some history and oldness," she says. "It has a soul, it has energy." The name Xuntos — which means "together" in Galician — was born out of a post-pandemic desire to create a space for connection. "We're gonna bring back the roaring twenties," Cordero says with a laugh. "Abundance and celebrating... eat all night, drink all night... put those phones away and just engage."

But 2025 tested that vision. Strikes, fires and the closure of Pacific Coast Highway for four months hit the neighborhood hard. Cordero transformed Xuntos into a community hub, feeding up to 400 evacuees daily during the Palisades Fire. The neighborhood noticed. "We really have a lot of neighbors who keep coming back," she says. Cordero makes annual trips to Spain, drawing inspiration from restaurants such as Culler de Pau, the two-Michelin-star restaurant in Galicia known for its zero-mile philosophy and dishes that evoke the local landscape and sea. That sensibility — simple, local, deeply rooted — shows up on the Xuntos menu. Her vision remains simple: "We really want to be the neighborhood place."

Chef Elijah DeLeon, Rustic Canyon

At Rustic Canyon, Executive Chef Elijah DeLeon blends South Bay roots with Jalisco traditions and California's seasonal abundance.

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Courtesy Rustic Canyon

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Alex Scott

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Birria de res quesadillas from Chef Elijah DeLeon at Rustic Canyon, based on a recipe passed down from his Jalisco-born grandmother.

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Mike Hos

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Courtesy Rustic Canyon

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Elijah DeLeon grew up in Torrance, Carson and Gardena — an area he still calls "my favorite part of Los Angeles... it does not feel L.A." He began cooking at 18 and quickly became obsessed with the landmark cookbook On Vegetables by Jeremy Fox, former chef-owner of Rustic Canyon in Santa Monica. "That's my favorite cookbook," DeLeon says. "I was obsessed with his Instagram." He applied to its sister restaurant, Birdie G's, as a cook right before pandemic restrictions lifted, working his way up to junior sous chef and sous chef before joining Rustic Canyon six years ago. He's now the restaurant's executive chef, after Fox stepped down last year.

DeLeon draws deeply from his roots. The son of a mother from Jalisco and a Filipino father, he spoke Spanish at home. "I grew up very Mexican," he says. "My grandma would stay with us four or five months of the year... the music my mom would play, the traditions." Those traditions, along with years spent at the Torrance Farmers Market, would come to shape everything he puts on the plate.

That influence found its fullest expression in “Rustic Cantina,” a weekly Thursday event that began in September, where the entire menu became Mexican-inspired. The concept proved so popular that it became the restaurant's daily happy-hour menu, available every evening from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the bar and lounge, and roughly 50 percent of the regular menu now consists of Mexican dishes. The Japanese sweet potato flautas have become a topseller, while the birria de res holds a special place. "My grandma, that's one of the first dishes she showed me how to make," he says. while chocoflan rounds it out — "the dessert I would love having on my birthday."

With cumbias blasting and birria now flowing every evening, Rustic Cantina has become proof that the best restaurants aren't just about the food — they're about the stories behind it.

Jyan Isaac Horwitz, Jyan Isaac Bread

At 25, Jyan Isaac Horwitz may be LA's youngest artisan baker — and one of its most prolific.

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Nick Smeshko

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Courtesy Jyan Isaac Bread

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Jyan Isaac Horwitz's breads include porridge loaf, marble rye and the city sourdough — "just flour, water and salt".

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Courtesy Jyan Isaac Bread

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One of the youngest bakers in Los Angeles might just be the most prolific as well. At 25, Jyan Isaac Horwitz has taken the city by storm with his Westside bakery churning out deliciously whole-grain sourdough loaves.

Born and raised in Venice, Horwitz started baking in middle school — his mother is a pastry chef. After earning his GED, he got a job at Gjusta Bakery in Venice, the acclaimed artisanal bakery known for its house-made sourdough and ingredient-driven approach. It's where he got serious about the craft. "I owe a lot of it to my time at Gjusta," Horwitz says. "I learned a lot and I met a lot of people and had some mentorships."

When the pandemic hit in March 2020, Horwitz took a volunteer furlough from Gjusta. Plans to work at a bakery in Germany fell through, so he started baking sourdough loaves at home and selling them to neighbors. Word spread quickly, and Horwitz launched what he calls a "bread hustle" — baking 50 loaves a day and delivering them across the city with help from his family. His father had a lease on a shuttered pizza restaurant on Ocean Park Boulevard, so Horwitz started using that kitchen. Eventually, he scaled to 100 loaves a day, baking 20 at a time over five hours.

When the Los Angeles Times profiled him in July 2020, demand exploded. Horwitz had a months-long waitlist and lines down the street. That's when they invested in a proper bread oven and turned it into a real business. The growth has been gradual since then, transforming into what Horwitz calls "a neighborhood place with regulars."

Today, the menu at Jyan Isaac Bread spans bagels, baguettes, ciabatta, olive fougasse and bagel sandwiches with house-made gravlax. But Horwitz's heart belongs to the hearth loaves: the porridge loaf, made with a Three Sisters grain mix of rye, oat and barley flakes cooked into porridge with a toasted wheat germ crust; the marble rye with caraway seeds, "perfect for pastrami sandwiches", and the German-style crackle rye. Then there's the city sourdough — the purest expression of his philosophy. "It's so simple... just flour, water and salt," Horwitz says. "Through the process of fermentation, they turn into something that's much more complex." That flour — milled fresh in Skagit Valley, Washington, with all its nutrients intact — makes all the difference. "The flour makes everything for me because since it's so fresh, they keep all of the nutrients inside that get stripped for shelf life," he says. "I want to make a product that people seek out... that you can't just get at the grocery store."

At 25, he's likely the youngest baker in LA's artisan bread scene, constantly learning from other bakers while building his own legacy. The most rewarding part? "Making a product that I feel proud of... something I want more people to experience." That mission is expanding: a Silver Lake location is set to open in the coming months. "L.A. is so massive," Horwitz says. "So many different communities and neighborhoods that want and love good bread. I'm trying to fulfill some more of that need."

May gray skies will continue to keep the mornings on the cooler side, but come later this afternoon we'll see some sunshine and slightly warmer temps.

High temperatures along the beaches will stay in the mid 60s to around 70 degrees, and reach the lower 70s for the inland coast.

For the valleys, temperatures will reach the upper 70s. Meanwhile the Inland Empire will see highs up to 83 degrees.

Coachella Valley will see highs from 95 to 100 degrees.

Looking ahead to the weekend, the National Weather Service is forecasting high surf and dangerous rip currents for nearby beaches.

Come Saturday afternoon around 3:00, Ventura County will be under a high surf advisory. That will last until 9 a.m. Monday. Waves could be five to eight feet tall.

Meanwhile, the Malibu coast and L.A. County beaches will see dangerous rip currents and breaking waves starting Saturday evening through Monday morning. Swimmers, surfers and beach goers should be careful.

Since staunch conservatives achieved full control of Huntington Beach’s seven-member City Council in 2024, they have voted in lockstep to fight state mandates to build more housing, and for the right to censor books in the children’s library. They also voted unanimously to install a commemorative plaque at the library that spells out “M-A-G-A” and to commission a public mural to honor slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

But the city’s once-solid MAGA coalition appears to be fracturing, largely over allegations of “cronyism” — contracts, deals, favors and political appointments that appear to benefit friends and family of the city’s leaders. In April, several members of the council publicly lambasted the mayor’s plan to award a lucrative contract, seemingly out of nowhere and without competitive bidding, to the fiance of his appointee to a city commission.

The public backlash was swift from across the political spectrum — an unusual occurrence in the politically polarized city. An equally unusual display of dissent arose from the once-allied council. One of the dissenters, City Councilmember Chad Williams, told LAist he was outraged by “the audacity of our own mayor to push through this sweetheart deal for his commissioner’s fiance. Our city deserves better,” he said.

The mayor, Casey McKeon, told LAist he didn’t “understand the pushback.” He said the consultant who would have benefited from the contract, Tyler Wolff of Wolffhaus Studio & Creative, “happens to be one of the best in the industry. Why should we not engage in his services?”

Wolff, for his part, told LAist he merely saw problems with the city’s “brand ecosystem” — including events, merchandising and media outreach — and proposed solutions. “There’s no creative leadership, there’s no oversight, and there’s no accountability,” he said. Wolff said he was caught off guard by the controversy over the proposed contract for his company. “I know nothing about the RFP procurement process,” he said.

Ultimately, McKeon withdrew the contract with Wolffhaus under pressure, and the city is currently evaluating alternative bids (including from Wolffhaus).

The rift comes at a fraught time for the MAGA movement: Nationally, the coalition is splintering over the war in Iran; Locally, a deepening budget crisis in Huntington Beach has caused some residents and local leaders to look more closely at the city’s recent spending decisions.

At the heart of the city’s problems is cronyism, critics say. But not everyone agrees on what falls into that category.

The backstory

The latest controversy started when a proposal to award a $720,000 contract to Wolffhaus appeared on the city’s April 7 council meeting agenda, proposed by Mayor McKeon. The two-year contract was for revamping and maximizing the city’s “brand,” including ramping up sales of HB merch, opening a film commission, and improving the city’s public relations. The ultimate goal is to generate more revenue to help close a looming budget gap.

Several council members said they had no prior knowledge of the initiative before it appeared on the agenda — nor did they know that the city had already paid Wolff $30,000 to “audit” the city’s branding and communications strategy.

Critics, including Councilmember Williams, pointed out what they characterized as a number of other red flags, including Wolffhaus’ unfinished website which included a contact number that went to an adult hotline. (Wolff said it was a mistake and is now fixed.) The contract also contained a clause stating that, should the city want to cancel the contract at any time without cause, it would owe half of the remaining allocated funds to Wolffhaus. Williams called it a potential “windfall for work that was never done.”

“This was tailor made for Tyler [Wolff],” Williams said of the contract.

City Councilmember Andrew Gruel sided with Williams in vocally opposing the contract, calling its road to near-approval “sloppy.” Gruel told LAist he has a high regard for Wolff’s work, but was concerned about the transparency leading up to the contract’s sudden appearance on the council’s agenda. “I think the whole process was upside down,” Gruel said.

The council’s usual critics were livid, lambasting the personal connection between McKeon and Wolff and the lack of a competitive bidding process, which is generally required for large contracts.

“The whole thing just smacks of cronyism, backroom deals, sloppiness, lack of accountability, fiscal responsibility, I mean, pick some adjectives,” said Cathey Ryder, co-founder of the group Protect HB. The group has been a frequent foil to the current council’s agenda, including spearheading a ballot initiative last year that overturned the library censorship measure.

But indignation came in equal measure from the other side of the proverbial aisle, including from former backers of the mayor and his allies.

“I’ve supported most of the people on this city council for a long time,” resident Domnic McGee said during public comment at the April 7 meeting. “But it seems that certain people are ruling by fiat,” he said, referring to McKeon.

McGee, who serves on the city’s planning commission, told LAist he worried that the communications contract would give the mayor a direct line to “spin” the messaging coming out of the city during election season. McKeon is up for re-election this fall.

“Casey [McKeon] will be able to override anything he doesn't like and overemphasize what he does,” McGee said. “And he could pretty much use this for his campaign.”

McGee said he campaigned for McKeon in 2021 but would now “never vote for him again.”

Following the outcry, McKeon withdrew the proposal from consideration and the city put out a request for competitive bids. An ad hoc committee made up of the mayor and two allied council members will review the proposals in private and recommend their top choices. Williams said the bidding process had been “utterly tainted.”

A pattern of 'cronyism' complaints

The rift over the Wolffhaus contract may have temporarily shaken up Huntington Beach’s conservative factions, but the faultlines are blurry. At their latest meeting, the city council voted 6-0 to shift $10,000 in federal grants from an afterschool care program in the city’s Oak View neighborhood, and $5,000 from a local program for at-risk youth, to a nonprofit where Councilmember Gruel, a vocal critic of the Wolffhaus deal, is the executive director.

The organization, Save the Brave, which is based in Temecula, takes veterans on deep-sea fishing trips. Gruel left the city council chambers when the vote was taking place, but did not formally recuse himself, or publicly disclose his ties to the organization. Under California’s Political Reform Act, elected officials are required to publicly disclose and recuse themselves from voting on any issue that represents a potential financial conflict of interest.

Gruel told LAist he had disclosed his ties with the organization from the start of the grant process — well before the money came to a vote before city council. He said he takes no money for his work with Save the Brave, and that he didn’t know he was supposed to publicly disclose his ties to the organization at the time the vote took place. “I’m still learning all this stuff,” said Gruel, a chef and TV personality who was appointed to his seat last year after former Councilmember Tony Strickland won a seat in the state legislature in a special election.

Asked whether he thought the council’s vote to give his organization additional funds was a bad look, Gruel said “Of course.”

“Especially in the framework of previous council decisions, there’s this reputation now that there are these backroom deals,” he said.

Longtime critics of Huntington Beach’s city government say it has become commonplace to reward people with political and family ties with funds, contracts, and prominent positions in city government. They point to the following examples:

• A decades-long, multi-million dollar settlement with the operator of the city’s annual airshow, who staged campaign events and printed signs for several of the city councilmembers who approved the settlement. The city has been fighting a state effort to audit the deal. But Williams and Gruel recently proposed settling the case and letting the audit go forward.
• A special street renaming for a local conservative donor, Ed Laird, who helped fund the campaigns of several city council members. (Laird also helped negotiate the airshow settlement.)
• The appointment, by Gracey Van Der Mark, of City Councilmember Gruel’s wife to the city’s Community and Library Services Commission in 2023. Gruel said he had nothing to do with the appointment, which is unpaid.
• The appointment in 2022 of Kelly Gates, wife of Michael Gates, the former city attorney and now deputy assistant attorney, to the city’s Finance Committee, also an unpaid position. Van Der Mark also made that appointment. 

California’s Fair Political Practices Commission, the state ethics body, has found legal violations related to some of these incidents. The commission recently ruled that former city attorney Michael Gates, and City Council members McKeon, Van Der Mark, and Pat Burns violated disclosure rules by failing to report that they had received free VIP passes to the airshow in 2022 when they were negotiating a settlement with the event’s operator. A similar complaint is pending against Kelly Gates — city finance commissioners are also required to disclose their income and gifts.

The mere appearance of a conflict of interest is problematic for good governance, said Tracy Westen, a public interest lawyer who has expertise in government ethics. For example, appointing the spouses of government leaders to key positions in city government. “It could be they were the best people for the job,” Westen said, “but it raises an appearance issue.”

Some Orange County cities, including Irvine, Westminster and Laguna Niguel, prohibit appointments of family members to city commissions. Huntington Beach does not have a similar rule, although the city council is prohibited from appointing relatives to salaried positions.

What it all means for the November election

Those looking to unseat the current city council majority see opportunity in the rift over the Wolffhaus contract. “We are pleasantly surprised to see that there's a crack in the cabal, for lack of a better word,” said Ryder of Protect HB. The group is backing a slate of four candidates in the November election in hopes of unseating the council majority. One of the candidates is Erin Spivey, who sued the city over the book censorship policy and won, including a $1 million judgment against the city for attorneys' fees. The city is appealing.

If elected, Spivey said she would propose a ban on contracts and city appointments for individuals with close ties to city councilmembers. “This has got to stop. The government is not the plaything of elected officials,” Spivey said.

Some of the city’s most controversial figures are seeking higher office this year. Michael Gates is running for state Attorney General in the June primary. Van Der Mark is also hoping to make a jump to Sacramento — she’s one of four candidates to represent State Assembly District 72 on the primary ballot.

At the local level, McKeon and Burns are up for re-election this fall, and Gruel will face his first test on a ballot.

McKeon, Burns, and newcomer Brian Thienes are running as a conservative slate, with signs reading “Don’t split the vote!”

But Gruel has chosen to run solo — distancing himself from the trend in Huntington Beach, over the last two election cycles, of Republican-backed council candidates running as a bloc. “I don’t necessarily look at everything through a party filter,” Gruel told LAist, adding that he considers himself a small-government libertarian.

Gruel said he shared critics’ concerns about the lack of daylight on some of the city’s recent contracts and decisions. “Generally speaking this is why I’m so frustrated by the look, because my whole thing is transparency,” he said.

Orange County will stop spraying local flood control channels with toxic chemicals — an environmental issue that has morphed in recent months into a major theme in the June 2 primary race to represent South O.C. on the Board of Supervisors.

In an emailed announcement, Supervisor Katrina Foley, who represents District 5, wrote that “following months of community outcry,” O.C. Public Works would halt spraying and “instead observe the growth patterns of invasive species to evaluate the safest and most effective procedures for removal.”

The backstory

The environmental activists who make up the three-person Creek Team OC began raising the alarm earlier this year about the county’s practice of spraying toxic chemicals to keep vegetation down in local waterways and flood control channels, which flow out to the ocean. Brent Linas, the group’s founder, had become concerned about the issue while noticing what he characterized as “dead” ecosystems during his runs along San Juan Creek, which empties into Doheny State Beach.

The political context

The herbicide spraying had become a major issue in the race to represent District 5 on the Orange County Board of Supervisors. Katrina Foley, a Democrat, is running for reelection against state Assemblymember Diane Dixon, a Republican. The conservative Lincoln Club, through its PAC, has spent around $200,000 thus far to try to influence the race. The PAC has latched onto the herbicide issue to attack Foley in ads and mailers.

The Lincoln Media Foundation, which shares an address and officers with the Lincoln Club, has simultaneously published content critical of Foley’s handling of the herbicide issue through the affiliated publication, California Courier.

Linas of Creek Team called Foley’s announcement about the countywide pause on herbicide spraying “a huge, huge victory for us.” Linas, who described himself to LAist as a lifelong Democrat, said his group ultimately used the political jockeying over the issue to their advantage. “ We took this firehose of money that exists and we redirected some of it towards what we saw as an urgent issue,” he said.

What’s next?

Orange County Public Works could still use herbicides in conjunction with maintenance work if they identify an “immediate need of vegetation management,” according to the announcement. But the county would give the public seven days' notice in advance of any such use. A pilot project along San Juan and Trabuco creeks is underway to evaluate the viability of replacing chemical spraying with manual and mechanical weed removal.

How to watchdog your local government

One of the best things you can do to hold officials accountable is pay attention. Your city council, board of supervisors, school board and more all hold public meetings that anybody can attend. These are times you can talk to your elected officials directly and hear about the policies they’re voting on that affect your community.

• Read tips on how to get involved.
• The Orange County Board of Supervisors meets on alternating Tuesdays at 9:30 a.m. at 400 W. Civic Center Drive, Santa Ana. You can check out the O.C. Board of Supervisors full calendar here.
• Learn how to submit a public comment to the O.C. Board of Supervisors.

U.S. domestic air travel has boomed in recent years, except for one segment. Short flights of a few hundred miles decreased over the past decade, while longer flights became more popular, according to data gathered by the aviation analytics firm OAG for NPR.

Nearly 4 million short flights are scheduled for this year. But as of mid-April, the number of flights spanning less than 250 nautical miles had declined by 11% from 2016 to 2026 — the biggest drop of any route length. The decline comes as no surprise to John Grant, a senior analyst at OAG.

"That is an awful distance to be operating," he says, because short flights are more expensive for airlines than flights with a longer cruise time.

In contrast, every domestic flight category of more than 500 miles saw notable gains over the same 10-year span. The numbers depict the U.S. hub-and-spoke aviation system moving toward longer "spokes" for some routes.

The trend was well established even before rising fuel prices from the Iran war rattled U.S. aviation. It could now accelerate, as airlines raise prices and trim less-profitable flights due to jet fuel supply constraints.

Domestic jet fuel costs have roughly doubled since early February, before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran. U.S. airlines spent more than $5 billion on jet fuel in March, a 56% increase from February, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Spirit Airlines blamed the soaring fuel costs when it announced it would shut down last weekend. Prices are even higher for Asia and other markets that rely more heavily on supplies transiting the Strait of Hormuz.

"Any time there is pressure like that, particularly a cost pressure, but also a resource pressure, airlines are going to concentrate flying where they can move the most passengers with the fewest pilots," says Faye Malarkey Black, CEO of the Regional Airline Association.

Short-hop flights are the most frequent, and least efficient

Every day, thousands of U.S. airline passengers step off planes without needing to check the local time and weather, because they've traveled less than 100 miles, on flights lasting less than an hour.

For example, there are dozens of flights between Milwaukee and Chicago each week, even though they're separated by less than 80 miles and have been connected by rail lines for more than a century. But there's a key snag for travelers in the Milwaukee area who might want to take the train to O'Hare International, says Joshua Schank, an urban planning professor at UCLA who's also a partner with the consulting firm Infra Strategies.

"Remember, that rail is going between the [cities'] two downtowns, and it's not between the airports," he says. "And that's the key distinction," he adds, noting that a majority of the route's passengers are likely connecting to other destinations beyond Chicago.

For routes like that to make economic sense, they require enough people willing to pay, says Black, of the airline association.

"It's not the distance, it's the density," she says. "If you have a short flight that has a lot of density because it's between two urban centers and it's a viable option, then people will take that option."

It's one of the shorter spokes in the U.S. hub-and-spoke system that helps airlines concentrate their traffic. That's why the sub-250-mile distance remains the second most popular domestic route, even with its double-digit decline. The most popular flight category over the past 10 years isn't much longer, with the 251 to 500 nautical mile distance scheduled 2.1 million times in 2026, despite a roughly 4% dip.

But all those repeated shorter flights come at a cost.

"A lot of the fuel is used in the takeoff and landing processes," Grant says. And every landing, he notes, adds wear and tear on the planes' equipment.

To hit the sweet spot of revenue versus cost, Grant says, "airlines typically try to be in that two-hour block time" – a category that includes flights over 500 miles, such as Washington, D.C., to Atlanta.

At airports, short flights also add to the workload for understaffed air traffic control systems and congested gates. A small regional jet carrying 50 people, for instance, is just as important to a controller as a wide-body airliner. And it takes up gate space repeatedly, as it shuttles passengers back and forth to a hub airport. As Black notes, the impact of all those short flights adds up.

"Regional airlines have always been the backbone of air service to smaller communities," she says. "In the early 2000s, they were the only source of scheduled air service for roughly three-quarters of U.S. airports. Today, that figure is closer to two-thirds."

Prices for U.S. jet fuel have nearly doubled since before the Iran war began, shaking up the aviation industry. This file photo shows a worker preparing to fuel a United Express jet at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, in Grapevine, Texas.

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Where are we heading? 

Despite their recent decline, short-hop flights are integral to the hub-and-spoke network, taking people from Colorado Springs to Denver, for instance, or from Birmingham to Atlanta.

But airlines have shifted more toward longer flights over the past decade, thanks largely to a new generation of narrow-body aircraft that are more efficient, making them an enticing option for longer-range routes. That's why the trendline favors routes such as the 501 to 750-mile category (e.g. Portland to Las Vegas, or Houston to Tampa), which grew by 11% to nearly 1.7 million scheduled flights in 2026. Flights of more than 750 and 1,000 miles each saw double-digit percentage gains, as well.

"Unfortunately for short-haul routes, the economics are not in their favor," says Ahmed Abdelghani, professor of operations management at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida. He notes that a smaller jet's higher costs must be borne by fewer passengers than a larger plane, prompting higher fares.

"Those new generation narrowbody aircraft will have much better economics than the smaller 50-seater, 70-seater aircraft," Abdelghani says, citing the newer jets' ability to spread costs over more than 160 seats, depending on how they're configured.

The newer planes align with airlines that prioritize route profitability, Abdelghani says. But he and Black both say that larger narrow-body planes aren't a good fit for every market – and as a result, smaller communities could see fewer flights and connectivity.

"The airports with the sharpest service losses tend to be small hub and non-hub airports," Black says, "and those markets are often built around shorter-distance flying." She notes that other problems, such as pilot shortages, are also affecting small markets. "As pilot availability tightened, airlines had to make decisions about where limited flying could be sustained," Black says.

As Abdelghani puts it, "The airline decides, OK, since now I'm going to fly only efficient aircraft, I'm going to sacrifice the routes that this aircraft doesn't fit."
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