CAA: GA News, "Rhode Island airport makes a turnaround"

["Stephen Irwin" <stepheni@cwnet.com>]

Friday, March 17, 2000

RI airport makes a turnaround
GA News


In 1997, with its five state-owned general aviation airports suffering from
years of neglect, Rhode Island turned over management of the airports to
Hawthorne Aviation (now Piedmont-Hawthorne Rhode Island in the wake of the
1998 merger between Hawthorne and Piedmont). The idea was to use revenues
from the growing commercial traffic volume at Green State Airport (PVD) in
Providence to fund improvements at the deteriorating GA fields. Many pilots
in the state were skeptical, but three years later Piedmont-Hawthorne and
its record on improvements are getting high marks. The infrastructure at the
state’s airports has improved substantially, and the newly elected president
of the Rhode Island Pilots Association (RIPA), Michael Kelly, lauds the job
Piedmont Hawthorne is doing. For his part, Piedmont-Hawthorne general
manager John Lemon credits RIPA with helping establish the priorities for
the improvements.

“When I first got here, I sat down with them and we worked with different
members and discussed what they thought needed to be done, and they were a
great help with input to the process,” said Lemon. “They’ve been helping us
along, working with us.”

A five-year capital improvement plan was developed in the fall of ’97, and
“every year we update the list a little,” Lemon said. Among the first
priorities tackled: roof repairs, terminal building repairs, and fuel farm
installations throughout the state’s airports. Runways were redone and
energy-wasting ’50s vintage boilers were replaced. Secondarily, lots of
cosmetic work has been undertaken. The latest projects scratched from the
“to do” list: Runway 14-32 at Westerly State (WST) has been resurfaced, new
runway lights have been installed, the taxiway has been repaired, and road
access improved. And fuel farm installations have recently been completed at
Quonset State (OQU) and North Central State (SFZ) airports. Next project on
tap: apron and taxiway projects at Newport State (UUU) will begin soon.

The money generated by Green State has enabled Piedmont-Hawthorne to
increase spending on airport improvements from a zero capital budget when
the company took the management reins, to between $1.5 and $2 million per
year currently. The more money the airport generates, the more goes into the
GA fields. Currently, a major expansion of the airline facilities is
underway at Green. But paradoxically Green’s success could squeeze GA out of
that airport, which has already reduced the area for its general aviation
operations on the field.

“I don’t think that’s really happened yet,” said Lemon regarding an end of
GA activity at Green. “ I say ‘yet’ because I think at some point that might
happen. It’s just a guess.”

But after years of watching their airports slowly deteriorate, Rhode Island
pilots don’t seem to mind the trade-off.

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