HIGHFILL — Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport officials expect to get less money from the new federal aviation bill, but the cuts should not affect plans to rehabilitate the main runway at the airport.
The runway rehab project is already included among the Federal Aviation Administration’s planned capital improvement projects, according to Kelly Johnson, airport director. Officials have in hand two $10 million federal grants and a third $10 million grant has been promised.
“They’ll stick to their knitting with us because we’ve got the program laid out for these $10 million grants,” Johnson said. “But after that, it’s going to be real difficult to get your hands on discretionary dollars.”
Repairs to the main runway will require tearing out and replacing the concrete, the drainage system and at least some of the base at an estimated cost of $30 million to $40 million.
An alkaline reaction between aggregate and sand in the concrete mix has caused cracking in the 8,800-foot-long runway.
The FAA bill, which landed on President Barack Obama’s desk last week and is expected to be signed, authorizes $63.4 billion through 2015. The nation’s airports and the FAA had been operating on 23 consecutive continuing resolutions since the last funding bill expired in 2007.
The compromise reduces the federal share for Airport Improvement Projects at most small airports from 95 percent to 90 percent, ending a temporary funding increase that Congress included in the last FAA bill, after air travel and revenue dwindled in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
That means the local grant match will have to go up significantly. The airport used to match about $500,000 for a $10 million grant. It will now be more than $1 million, Johnsonsaid. State matching mon ey is capped at $300,000.
“We’ll have to find mon ey elsewhere because our project plate’s pretty well lined up,” Johnson said “We’re going to be doing this runway rehab and we won’t be able to put that off.”
Northwest Arkansas Re gional Airport has an an nual budget of just under $13 million from operating revenue and passenger facilities charges.
Better navigation
The aviation bill also includes a faster timetable for upgrading the nation’ air-traffic control system from radar to GPS at a cost of about $11 billion.
The NextGen program requires aircraft flying in congested airways to use the new technology by 2020 and orders the FAA to develop more efficient routes into the country’s 35 busiest airports.
“We’ve got GPS ap proaches out here now What needs to happen from a technology per spective is the funding,” Johnson said. “One of the arguments about NextGen coming from the airlines is who equips the aircraft with the receivers, who pays for that.”
Airlines should actually profit from the Next-Gen equipment because it cuts down on air time and fuel use by eliminating stair-step descents to land. Planes will also be able to take off and land closer together because pilots will know the exact location of other planes.
“The airlines, a couple have it but most of them don’t because you have to put the equipment in and you’ve got to train your pilots to use it,” Johnson said. “So, until it’s mandated, a lot of them aren’t going to do it.” Low-cost flights
It doesn’t appear the Southwest Airlines/Airtran merger will bring more or cheaper flights to Northwest Arkansas.
“I think they’ve pulled out of 12, maybe 13, markets our size or smaller where Airtran was located,” Johnson said.
Frances Mayo, owner of Around the World Travel in Springdale, said fares out of Northwest Arkansas are expensive because the carriers take advantage of the business travelers coming to call on the area’s business trinity, Walmart, Tyson Foods and J.B. Hunt.
“It is very expensive compared to other airports. I think the only way we’re going to see airfares come down is if we see a low-cost carrier such as JetBlue, Airtran, Southwest,” Mayo said. “Until we see one of those, I do not see the airfares changing.”
Pleasure travelers from the area have traditionally flown out of Tulsa to get cheaper flights; now many are flying out of Branson.
“Distance-wise, I’d say they’re comparable and in specific markets, Branson blows Tulsa away,” Mayo said.
Airport officials do have a gate to fill. The opening was created by the new concourse completed last year.
“For the first time we’ve got a gate so we’re working with some carriers, certainly some existing carriers, and having some early discussions with some new entrants and we hope to get them interested in our market,” Johnson said. “We haven’t had any open gates, so it’s hard to go out there and market your airport to a new air carrier when you’ve got nowhere to put them. That’s kind of a nobrainer.”
Johnson said airport officials have been fairly successful working withexisting carriers, getting them to look at new routes and markets where they can put enough bodies in the aircraft for them to make money and for the airport to get additional destinations.
Service comes and goes because airlines didn’t get the right number of people in the seats or the flight became uneconomical because of fuel prices. That’s what happened to the Northwest Arkansas to Los Angeles service.
“They don’t fly a route because they like it. They fly a route because it makes them money,” Johnson said. “As much as the public sometimes doesn’t understand that, it’s all about the numbers.” SPOTLIGHT - FAA
The Federal Aviation Administration receives about $15 billion a year to operate air traffic control centers at more than 400 airports. The FAA also inspects commercial aircraft and oversees airline safety operations and airport improvement projects. Partisan wrangling last summer caused a two-week partial shutdown of the agency that resulted in 4,000 employees being furloughed and the loss of $350 million in airline taxes.
News, Pages 16 on 02/15/2012