Ideas on airport development sought
Taking an entirely different approach to an issue sometimes can solve very difficult problems or challenges. Consultants call it “thinking outside the box.” While it sounds easy to do, it isn’t. Serious problems can persist for years, consuming an enormous amount of time, energy and money.
The Connellsville Airport, otherwise known as the Fayette County airport, could be in that category. Conventional thinking, including consultants and expert studies by the dozens, has been unable to develop or expand the airport.
A variety of activities have been tried at the airport to generate revenue. These include sports car races on weekends, a truck driver training facility, a small airplane flight school, and a parachute jumping center.
The county currently is studying property at the airport for location of a ground transportation facility. About five acres is being considered as the site for construction of a transit center for the Fayette Area Coordinated Transportation program. Funds for this project are available.
The airport authority board is working with consultants on a master plan for the airport, which includes a proposal to extend the runway. Extension of the runway is considered crucial because larger jet aircraft cannot land at the airport now.
Joe Hardy, owner of 84 Lumber and Nemacolin Woodlands Resort & Conference Center near Farmington, is supporting the airport’s expansion plans. Although he has a small landing strip at the resort in the mountains, he says he needs a longer runway to allow large jets to land. The county airport could fulfill that need.
Hardy’s resort serves an international clientele. Two presidents have been visitors there. Extending the runway at the county airport would allow big jet aircraft to land and then shuttle visitors on a short trip up the mountain to the resort.
The construction cost to extend the runway, while needed, is going to be very high. Locating adequate financing has been and will continue to be a challenge.
As noted earlier, if development of the airport was an easy problem to solve, it would have been fixed years ago. Some “what if” discussions could be useful.
As an example, what if a group of small businesses in this area, with widely different needs, such as florists, health services or computer software suppliers, would organize a consortium designed to offer specialized air cargo transportation into and out of the county airport.
Small cargo-carrying aircraft could increase the efficiency and possibly reduce the cost of moving small items to national, and even international, markets. Perhaps this particular idea has already been explored in the past. Maybe it’s not practical.
But there’s always the outside chance that other businesses could use the airport in various ways which have not yet been explored. Even if some of the ideas seem to be far fetched or impossible, there’s no harm in taking a few minutes to hear them.
Regardless of your business or profession, if you have some thoughts about how the airport could improve or assist your operation, it could be an interesting experience to sit down for an informal discussion.
Since we have no expertise in such topics as air transportation, our only purpose is to suggest the idea for discussion, in an effort to see if others have an interest, and then arrange a date, time and place for an informal discussion to occur.
There is no such thing as a bad idea about how the local airport can be used. Send an e-mail, give me a call (724-439-7575), or drop me a note.
Mike Ellis is the editor of the Herald-Standard. His e-mail address is: mellis@heraldstandard.com.