CAA: GA News, "Michigan officials will resume collecting airport payments when national flight restrictions are eased"

["Stephen Irwin" <stepheni@xxxxxxxxx>]

Tuesday, October 2, 2001

City officials will resume collecting payments when national flight
restrictions are eased. 
By SCOTT NEINAS 
Monroe (MI) Evening News


Lease payments made by the City of Monroe's airport operators will be
shelved indefinitely and airport operators say it is a result of
federally imposed flight restrictions. 

The Monroe City Council approved City Manager Robert Hamilton's
recommendation for the airport Monday after some discussion on how long
the waiver would last. He assured the council that the city would begin
collecting payments again as soon as restrictions are eased. 

Monroe Aviation leases and operates Monroe Custer Airport at 2800 N.
Custer Rd. for $5,250 a month. Air traffic has all but halted at the
airport after the FAA set limits on who could and couldn't fly at class
B airports such as Custer. 

Only commercial pilots and persons in training for visual flight rules
(VFR) licenses are permitted to fly. The airport, as a result, has seen
revenue fall by 70 percent since Sept. 11, according to Kelly Gotha, who
owns Monroe Aviation with her husband, Jim. She added that for the first
two weeks after the attacks, all air traffic was halted, meaning her
company was crippled with a 100 percent revenue loss. 

Since most of the 40 planes are grounded at the airport, there is less
maintenance being done and less fuel being sold, which are standard
income generators for the operators. 

The company's flight training program, composed of about 50 students,
brings in a significant amount of revenue, Mrs. Gotha said. Under normal
conditions, planes are in the air at almost all times during daylight
hours. 

"It's a big piece of our business," she said. 

She said it would take at least one month to get revenue up to normal
levels. The good news, she said, is that the FAA is relaxing the
restrictions it imposed after the attacks. Still, company officials have
to call authorities daily to find out who can fly and who can't. 

"It's made it very challenging," Mrs. Gotha said. 

Keith Makela, who leads the city's airport advisory board, said the
rules governing air traffic will probably never be the same. 

"The FAA is changing things hour by hour," he told the council Monday
night. "The Department of Defense is basically running the FAA." 

Mr. Hamilton said that the city's airport account as of this morning had
a fund balance of about $65,000. That balance will be whittled down for
as long as the payments are not made. 

"I don't anticipate it would ever turn into an emergency situation," he
said. "We would make the necessary budget moves in the spring" if the
restrictions were still being imposed. 

Mr. Makela said pilot restrictions wouldn't be the only changes in air
traffic. He envisioned a new set of flight rules that would prevent
planes from flying over large crowds of people. Planes would be diverted
from the downtown Detroit area, for example, when baseball games are
being played at Comerica Park. 

"I don't think flying will ever be the same again," he said.

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