"Grand Forks, N.D., Listed among Busiest Airports"

Thursday, October 3, 2002

Grand Forks, N.D., Listed among Busiest Airports
The Grand Forks Herald, N.D.


With only one terminal and seven flights per day from one major airline,
the Grand Forks International Airport doesn't seem like a big-time air
traffic hub. 

But it is. 

Grand Forks' air traffic control tower is ranked 50th in the most recent
compilation of the nation's 50 busiest facilities, according to the
Federal Aviation Administration. The local tower is listed among much
larger FAA operation centers such as Dallas/Forth Worth, Atlanta and the
nation's busiest, Chicago O'Hare. 

It's the first time the Grand Forks tower has cracked the top 50,
officials said. 

Dave Cink, Grand Forks tower manager, said what makes Grand Forks so
busy is the number of training flights it handles from UND's John D.
Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences. 

"University flight operations account for approximately 92 percent of
our operations," Cink said. "As the university operations increase, so
do ours."

And increase they have. UND's flight school set an all-time record in
September with 12,775 flying hours performed by its students. That
shattered the previous mark of nearly 9,700 hours set last year. 

The record month was attributable to enrollment increases and more
efficient ways of doing business at the flight school, said UND Director
of Flight Operations Al Palmer. 

Palmer said there are 1,033 aviation students vying for flying time at
UND this year, compared with 914 last year. New procedures in aircraft
maintenance scheduling and computerized checks of student progress
reports, have made operations at the school smoother and quicker, he
said. 

"I'm so excited about it; I'm three feet off the ground right now,"
Palmer said. "It's like a well-oiled machine coming together and
clicking."

Palmer said UND's Grand Forks flight school currently uses 79 airplanes
and 203 flight instructors, counting himself, to conduct training. The
school also has satellite training sites in Crookston, Williston, N.D.,
Phoenix, Spokane, Wash., and Honolulu. 

He said the flight school has plans to purchase as many as 15 new
airplanes and break ground on a new aircraft hangar south of the Grand
Forks airport. 

UND played a major role in the Grand Forks tower's handling more than
282,000 operations in its last 12-month recording period. And last
month's traffic total of nearly 38,000 operations was the second most in
the history of the Grand Forks airport, Cink said. 

Palmer said its amazing how busy the airport flight line is on a given
day. 

"I look out, and on the ramp and I see 10 UND airplanes waiting in line
to take off," Palmer said, "and then a few minutes later I'll still see
10 airplanes on the ramp, but they're not the same airplanes."

Cink said the effects of 9/11 have cut into activity at the nation's
largest airports, which primarily handle large air carriers and
passenger airlines. Those effects haven't been as evident in Grand
Forks, and thus, the local airport was able to move up in the FAA
rankings, he said. 

Cink said when the FAA issues its next ranking of busiest control
towers, he expects Grand Forks will move up even more possibly to the
low 40s largely because of UND's recent record numbers, which weren't
counted in the last tabulation. 

FAA data indicates there are more than 560 "certificated" U.S. airports,
such as Grand Forks', that serve air carriers with seating for more than
30 passengers.


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