Plenty of numbers are on the rise at the Southeast Iowa Regional Airport: general aviation flights, commercial enplanements and Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization extensions.
The important figure not on that list? An increase in funding requests.
Mary Beaird, the airport's manager, presented annual updates to both the Burlington City Council and Des Moines County Board of Supervisors this week and offered little in the way of bad news.
"The good news is that I'm not going to ask for any additional funding for the next fiscal year," Beaird told the Des Moines County Supervisors Thursday.
She said several steps taken in the past couple of years, including reorganizing debt and getting assistance from Burlington, West Burlington and the county for capital projects and equipment purchases, have led to a better budget picture for fiscal 2013 than in years past.
"There's been a lot of things that have made our budget look a little bit better than it did last year at this time," Beaird told the city council Monday. She said the airport has been under budget the past three years as it worked to get its finances in order.
Des Moines County contributed $23,770 to the airport authority for the current fiscal year. West Burlington contributed $22,542, and Burlington contributes through a $0.21 cent per $1,000 tax levy. The contributions are split between the airport's operating budget and capital budget, with $70,000 going toward the former and the remainder going to the capital budget.
The capital improvement projects intended for the 2013 fiscal year, which begins in July, are a land acquisition and an aircraft parking apron rehabilitation, for which the local match totals $86,681. Beaird said, however, the more costly apron rehab likely will not begin in fiscal year 2013. Capital Improvement Program projects are 95 percent federally funded through the FAA with a 5 percent local match.
A taxiway rehabilitation project also will get under way this spring, but Beaird said it was funded in the current fiscal year, and construction was delayed from last fall. The project already has been bid and will be done by Shipley Contracting Corp. and is expected to be completed in phases in less than 90 days.
Beaird also updated the boards about the airport's commercial service offered by Air Choice One, which provides three daily flights to St. Louis and two daily flights to Chicago. Beaird said the airline is considering a third flight to Chicago. The airport receives a subsidy from the federal Essential Air Service program, which aims to provide commercial air service in smaller communities where people otherwise would have to travel a distance to access air service.
She said the U.S. Department of Transportation awarded the airport's EAS contract with Air Choice One for one year, with the stipulation the airline work toward getting electronic ticketing options and baggage agreements with other airline carriers.
"Air Choice One has really a challenge ahead of them to make that happen within a year," Beaird said, adding she's not sure what the repercussions are for not completing that work in a year.
She said the airline is getting closer to 10,000 enplanements. If it reaches that number, the airport will be able to take its federal funding level from $150,000 to $1 million. Beaird said the airport had fewer than 2,000 enplanements only a few years ago. It had 700 enplanements last month.
Beaird said the general aviation side also has had a lot of excitement in the past month, with private planes carrying presidential candidates and a 737 aircraft carrying returning soldiers landing at the regional airport. It also is seeing more corporate travel than in the past few years.
The FAA reauthorization that typically allows the funds for the Essential Air Service program and airport capital projects is on its 22nd extension. As the current extension ends Jan. 31 and Congress is not expected to be in session for much of this month, Beaird said she expects another extension.
She is monitoring that reauthorization bill because some in Congress want to end the EAS program and because funding for capital projects may be reduced.
Along with everything else, Beaird said the airport authority completed its master plan update and is awaiting FAA approval before holding a public meeting on the report. And it is gearing up for a Sept. 21 and 22 air show, which will include an evening act for the first time.
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Sources:
http://www.thehawkeye.com.
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