TRAVERSE CITY — Runway 10/28 at Cherry Capital Airport is cleared for takeoff and landing.
Construction and paving of the east-west runway was complete Friday and awaiting the final OK from the Federal Aviation Administration after 21 days of round-the-clock work to extend the strip, said airport Director Kevin Klein.
"No one has used it yet," he said.
FAA officials flew to Traverse City on Friday to survey the completed project and use instruments to verify all signals in the landing systems, he said.
"They'll basically fly it a few times and make sure it's correct with balances and tolerances," Klein said.
Once approved, commercial and private planes will be able to use the runway, which has been extended by 115 feet toward Garfield Road. The airport has been operating solely its north-south runway for the past two weeks.
Local construction crews from Team Elmer's ran three shifts per day with six total paving crews in each 24-hour period.
"If you were to equate what they did in 21 days, with their normal shift with the crews — normally one shift and one paving crew — it would have taken them 162 days to complete what they did in 21 days," Klein said.
Crews will continue working at night to groove the runway after the pavement has cured for 14 days, he said. But the runway will be usable in the meantime. The final grooving work will take about 18 days and crews also will finish approach lighting on the west side of Garfield Road before touching up paint on the runway.
"We're so thankful for Elmers and the engineers for the outstanding job on this project," Klein said. "It takes a team effort and I'm so happy we had all local contractors involved in this — it was a really fantastic project and we're very proud."
The $13.9 million project to repair and extend the airport's east-west runway to stretch more than 7,000 feet began in 2013, but the final phase began Aug. 7. The need for a longer runway stemmed from a capacity issue on hot summer days. Regional jets had less lift because of extra heat — causing the airlines to bump passengers off flights. The added length will eliminate the problem as jets will have more space to get off of the ground. The runway was also 24 years old and needed an upgrade.
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