"There's a role for small airports - FAA official"

Friday, October 4, 2002

There's a role for small airports - FAA official
No position taken on Smith Field closing.
By Kevin Leininger
The Fort Wayne (IN) News-Sentinel


The man who runs a federal program designed to improve the performance
and commercial feasibility of small jets believes it won't be long
before people see the value of small airports.

But with one small airport closing every two weeks, he hopes the
appreciation doesn't come too late.

"Do we want to build new airports or save the ones that already exist?"
said Peter McHugh, Federal Aviation Administration manager of the Small
Aircraft Transportation System, or SATS. A project of the FAA and the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration, SATS is a five-year, $69
million project designed to create technology that could revolutionize
air travel.

By placing many of the functions of centralized air traffic controllers
in the cockpit - such as guidance systems controlled by satellites -
"point to point" air travel will become increasingly possible and
popular, McHugh said.

"Currently, 96 percent of American air travel goes through 460 airports,
and 70 percent through 30 airports," he said. "But we have 18,000
landing facilities in the country." By supplementing the traditional
"hub and spoke" system with air service that directly connects one point
to another, service at underutilized facilities could be improved while
reducing congestion around major airports.

McHugh is in Fort Wayne to address schools and business groups, and also
will meet with people trying to save Smith Field - the kind of airport
that could benefit from SATS technology, he said. The FAA, however, has
no position on the airfield's proposed closing.

If SATS proves the commercial viability of jets capable of using shorter
runways and of guiding themselves, McHugh said, private investors will
see the value of launching "air taxi" services, and communities the
value of maintaining smaller airports.

All that's needed is for people to understand the possibilities SATS
envisions. Instead of competing with larger airports and airlines,
McHugh believes air taxi service would make air travel more attractive
to people who now travel by other means. "Trips not imagined are trips
not taken," he said.


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