NextEra Energy lands in Orange County the week of the CPUC rate-case deadline

NextEra Energy landed at John Wayne Airport (33.676, -117.871) on May 27, 2026, after a 32-minute hop from Catalina Airport—a short reposition that dropped CEO John Ketchum’s Praetor 600, tail N31MW, into Orange County. The flight arrived at 10:19 p.m. local, following an earlier round-trip between the same coordinates a day prior.

The same week, the California Public Utilities Commission is concluding witness testimony on the company’s 2027 general rate case, per the CPUC’s published hearing calendar. NextEra’s Southern California Edison subsidiary has $2.3 billion in rate-adjustment requests before the commission, and the final evidentiary hearing was scheduled for May 26–28, 2026. The arrival near Santa Ana places Ketchum within driving distance of the CPUC’s downtown Los Angeles hearing room for the final day’s arguments.

The trip fits a pattern visible in the jet’s recent movements: N31MW flew from Palm Beach to Los Angeles on May 26, then repositioned from LAX-area coordinates to Catalina the same evening. The Marchand Praetor 600 has logged half a dozen East Coast–West Coast shuttles in the past week, with stopovers in Richmond, Dubuque, and Boston, per flight logs—consistent with a CEO juggling regulatory calendars on both coasts.