"Growth issue at Sunport already on front burner, Albuquerque airport official says"

Saturday, June 26, 2004

Growth issue at Sunport already on front burner, airport official says 
By Ed Asher 
The Albuquerque (NM) Tribune


Albuquerque International Sunport is one of 15 major airports in the
country that need to be expanded in the next decade to keep up with
population growth, the U.S. Department of Transportation said this week.

Last year, 6 million passengers went through Albuquerque's airport. That
number is expected to increase by 27 percent by 2013 and 46 percent by
2020, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

"Those are significant increases. So this is a wake-up call that action
needs to be taken now," Greg Martin, an FAA spokesman in Washington,
D.C., said Friday.

The Transportation Department released a study Thursday that analyzed
291 commercial U.S. airports. It concluded that 15 of those, including
Albuquerque, needed work by 2013 to prevent gridlock.

Airport authorities in Albuquerque say they are already planning
expansions and are prepared to meet growth needs for the foreseeable
future.

"That goes along with what we have in our master plan. We have been
planning for this type of growth for five or six years," said Mike Rice,
the city's aviation director.

The airport now has five gates that are unused. And gates that are
operational are not at full capacity, Rice said.

"We can go up 20 percent with the gates that we have now," Rice said.

The terminal can also be extended to allow for an additional four to six
gates, depending on design. "So that would be an additional 20 percent
utilizing the current terminal," Rice said.

He said there is no immediate need for additional runways.

"We currently have three runways: two primary and a secondary for
general aviation. The capacity of those runways can carry a lot more
than our terminal expansion would call for," Rice said.

"Our capacity situation is based upon the capacity of our terminal, not
our runways, for the foreseeable future."

The Transportation Department looked at population trends, economic and
social shifts and the changing dynamics of the airline industry. It
compared that data with current air service and capacity at the nation's
major airports.

"It should come as no surprise to people who live in Albuquerque that
the area is experiencing tremendous growth, as we expected to see
throughout the South, and particularly the Southwest," Martin said.

Martin said the FAA is prepared to offer financial support to
Albuquerque's airport in any project that would make the airport safer,
increase its capacity and make air traffic flow more efficiently.

Over the past four years, the FAA has provided Albuquerque with $12
million in airport grants for projects such as runway rehabilitation and
lighting, he said.

Rice acknowledges that at some point, the city will need to consider
building an additional terminal just to handle surface traffic as well
as passenger traffic.

"But that is somewhere down the road," he said.


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