"Piedmont Triad Airport in North Carolina to Spend $2.3 Million on Wetlands"

Wednesday, June 18, 2003

Piedmont Triad Airport in North Carolina to Spend $2.3 Million on Wetlands
The Winston-Salem (NC) Journal


The Piedmont Triad Airport Authority approved yesterday spending nearly $2.3
million to comply with part of its wetlands and stream obligations connected
to the proposed FedEx Corp. hub at the airport.

The authority will contract with Restoration Systems LLC of Raleigh to
provide wetland mitigation on a 4-acre site in southeast Guilford County.

The site also includes 6,000 linear feet of stream that will be preserved.

Restoration Systems will either lease the property or contract for an
easement on the site from the landowner, said Ted Johnson, the executive
director of Piedmont Triad International Airport. The company will establish
the property as wetlands and maintain the site for five years.

"This will take care of our off-airport needs for wetlands mitigation,"
Johnson said. The airport has 19 acres of wetlands and 20,000 linear feet of
streams on site.

The authority had been looking for nearly six years for property in the
Triad in which to establish a wetlands site to replace similar airport land
being dedicated to the FedEx hub. Johnson said that Restoration Systems
approached the authority with the site after first checking the area with
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the N.C. Department of Environment and
Natural Resources.

Johnson said that the authority would pay on the contract as Restoration
Systems acquires the lease or easement and performs work on the property.

In other news, the authority:

   -- Approved its $17.6 million budget for fiscal 2003-04, which is $1.1
million lower than last year's budget.

"We got a little shy about revenue and boarding expectations, so we put
together what we thought was a conservative and appropriate budget," Johnson
said.

Johnson said that the authority is projecting 1.2 million passenger
boardings in fiscal 2003-04, which is the same as in fiscal 2002-03.

The airport expects $27 million in revenue, mostly in the form of operating
revenue. The amount is down 3 percent from the year before, mostly because
the airport will no longer get revenue from in-flight catering services. The
airport also expects to get less money from customer services, such as
telephones and some transportation.

The authority has budgeted for $9.4 million in expenses, an increase of 2.3
percent.

   -- AirTran Airways said yesterday that it would add two daily nonstop
flights from the airport to its Atlanta hub beginning Aug. 5. The flights
will depart Piedmont Triad at 6:35 and 8:30 p.m. The flights from Atlanta to
Piedmont Triad will leave at 5 and 6:55 p.m.

The new flights will give the airport 86 nonstop departures, the most that
Piedmont Triad has provided since prior to Sept. 11, 2001, when it was
offering 101 departures.

When the new flights start, which will be on regional jets, AirTran will
have six daily flights to and from Piedmont Triad.


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