We propose a nonparametric estimator of the jump activity index $β$ of a pure-jump semimartingale $X$ driven by a $β$-stable process when the underlying observations are coming from a high-frequency setting at irregular times. The proposed estimator is based on an empirical characteristic function using rescaled increments of $X$, with a limit which depends in a complicated way on $β$ and the distribution of the sampling scheme. Utilising an asymptotic expansion we derive a consistent estimator for $β$ and prove an associated central limit theorem.