Sunday, September 14, 2014

Airport board hopes upgrades will attract commercial service: Telluride Regional (KTEX), Colorado

Telluride Regional (KTEX) needs equipment to allow more types of aircraft to land
 
In an effort to make the Telluride Regional Airport (TEX) more accessible to more types of aircraft, efforts are underway to raise money for equipment upgrades.

The proposal would allow the airport to start evaluating and designing a category C, or a private instrument approach. The idea for the upgrade is geared toward getting commercial service back at TEX. Currently the airport is a category B approach, which officials say is incompatible with many aircraft currently in use by commercial airlines.

 
TEX Board Chairman Jon Dwight said the board is going to be making presentations to local entities to raise money and would like to see things rolling by December.

The board is looking to raise around $30,000 from each of six local entities: Telluride Ski & Golf Company, The towns of Telluride and Mountain Village, San Miguel County, Telluride Mountain Village Owners Association and Colorado Flights Alliance.

“We’re probably going to leave [the schedule] open,” Dwight said. “We’re going to try and phase this out. The airport is going to try and move this forward as quickly as possible. But with everybody’s budgets and everything it was too hard to put a date on it. We would like to be rolling before the end of the year obviously.”

According to TEX documents from the board’s August meeting, the current plan is to develop a category C localizer approach for around $62,000. Additional costs would go toward developing a category C approach for commercial use that would be around $195,000. Then there will be costs for flight tests and maintenance that will cost between $70,000 and $75,000. TEX also plans to contribute another $150,000 to the project in addition to the other money that is being requested.

“Right now the only viable commercial, turbo-prop aircraft that can come in here is the Beechcraft 1900, and we have known that great lakes is exiting that aircraft,” Dwight said. “The Dash 8 also can and no one is offering the Dash 8 out west anymore.”

Dwight said TEX has been working for years to get category C approaches, and now the board is trying to take the issue into their own hands.

Great Lakes announced in July that it will discontinue service to TEX on Tuesday for a number of reasons. The airline says it is facing pilot and crew shortages since new Federal Aviation Administration regulations went into effect in 2013. Great Lakes is a regional airline and in Telluride it typically offers service to and from Denver. Great Lakes accounted for about 8 percent of TEX totals flights this year.

With the loss of Great Lakes, TEX estimate they will lose around $240,000 in 2015.

Great Lakes has been flying the 19-seat Beechcraft 1900 from Telluride to Denver once daily on weekdays and twice daily on weekends.

TEX sits atop Deep Creek Mesa as the nation’s highest commercial airport and, until recently, the runway’s infamous dip proved daunting for pilots and passengers.


- Source:  http://www.telluridenews.com

No comments:

Post a Comment