TEXARKANA, Ark. -
With budget pressures mounting, Texarkana Regional Airport is always looking for ways to save.
Airport officials say one way to increase profits is to make their general aviation T-hangars more efficient.
It's smaller, privately owned aircraft's that Airport Director Steve Luebbert would like to see actively using the airport facilities.
He says in recent years recreational airplane activity has diminished considerably, and some of the T-hangars have airplanes that haven't been used in over a decade.
"The more flight activity that we are able to enjoy at the airport, the less cost to the airport and to both cities," said Luebbert.
Beginning on August 1st, aircraft owners leasing T-hangers containing aircraft deemed to be long-term, non-flyable planes will have 90 days to fix their planes, start flying them, or find a different location to store them.
There are a total of 36 T-hangars on the airport property.
"There are nine aircraft that are long term non-flyable aircraft. I've got flyable aircraft that would like to come in, and I certainly want to encourage that," explained Luebbert.
He says all flight activity, both commercial and private, are important to the airport.
The FAA's funding of the control tower is based on traffic count.
"The FAA will continue to fund the tower, provided there is a level activity that supports the tower," said Luebbert.
Luebbert says the airport could be required to join a cost-share program with the FAA in the near future to help fund the control tower.
He says to avoid that happening they need to start getting the overall traffic count up.
However, the airport's commercial airline traffic is up 27 percent over last month.
Source: http://www.ktbs.com
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