CAA: GA News, "Airport director: Improvements will create good first impression"

["Stephen Irwin" <stepheni@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thursday, August 15, 2002

Airport director: Improvements will create good first impression
By Bernie Delinski
The Northwest Alabama Times-Daily


MUSCLE SHOALS -- The first impression that people coming into the Shoals
on corporate jets have is of the airport.

Northwest Alabama Regional Airport officials want that impression to be
a good one.

To that end, the airport is moving its fixed-base operations to an area
that is being renovated in the terminal.

"We'll be able to provide much better service and a modern facility,"
Airport Director John Lehrter said.

He said the fixed-based operations would transfer to the terminal Oct.
1. Fixed-base operations primarily serve general aviation pilots and
passengers who fly in and out.

"Many are corporate aircraft that come here to do business or to
consider doing business locally," he said.

The airport and a $50,000 rural development grant are paying for the
work. That includes $130,000 in renovations and $35,000 in new
equipment.

The director said the work is well worth it and has been needed.

"One of our primary objectives with the project is to provide a good
first impression," he said.

Fixed-based operations service all the flights that are not related to
Northwest Airlink, Lehrter said. The only service it provides Northwest
Airlink is fuel.

The operations will include pilot and passenger facilities, a
flight-planning room and meeting rooms, Lehrter said. There will be crew
rooms for pilots to rest while waiting for their passengers to return to
the airport.

The existing fixed-based operations are in a separate building at the
airport. That building would be available for other uses beginning Oct.
1. Lehrter said airport officials are considering options, which could
include leasing it.

The airport already has received an exterior facelift through a 2001
federal grant that funded projects such as repaving the runways and
remarking the runways and taxiways, providing new perimeter fencing and
installing security lighting.

Officials at small airports across Alabama are asking state officials to
provide more money for the facilities.

The Aviation Council of Alabama told the Legislature's joint legislative
committee on transportation Monday that Alabama needs to provide more
support for small airports. An aviation gas tax provides state matches
for federal funding for airports.

Lehrter, who is president of the aviation council, said the aviation gas
tax in Alabama is capped at $600,000. He said that is the lowest amount
in the Southeast. That amount hasn't increased since 1979.

"We'd have to triple our state funding to get to a level equal to South
Carolina, which is the second-lowest in the Southeast," Lehrter said.

He said 75 percent of the airports in Alabama have critical needs,
including runway safety, taxi areas and paving. He added that airports
in Alabama generate an annual economic impact of $4.7 billion.

Lehrter was invited to Monday's meeting by state Rep. Nelson Starkey of
Florence and gave those figures to State Transportation Director Paul
Bowlin. Bowlin said he wouldn't ask for higher aviation fuel taxes to
raise more state money to match federal grants.

Lehrter said the council would look for ways to get more money.


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