Every now and then I like to make a thread checking on all of the regional airports in the US that dont often get mentioned on a.net. I'm mainly talking about places with 600,000 annual enplanements or less.

Anyone with news about airport expansions, renovations, new service, discontinuation of service, growing enplanements, declining enplanements, etc.. please share it with us. Please do keep in mind, this isn't a request thread.

Up at crw, they finished the emas this summer and are currently working on moving the taxiway farther away from the main runway. After that project is complete, they're going to add 500ft. of displaced threshold to the runway as well.
Not much going on in terms of new service besides Commutair Dash-8s to CLE replacing the B1900 in January.


Whats new everywhere else?

I know that here at LOT (Chicago-Romeoville, IL) we are lobbying for a tower...after all we do have about 285 daily operations...granted it is mostly us flight students. What's new? Well there was a twin engine Cessna that landed gear up and skidded off the runway about 5 minutes after I took off friday. Apparently though that is not all too uncommon.

[Edited 2007-09-25 05:52:25]

St. George, Utah (SGU) is in the process of land acquisition for their new airport. A significant chunk of money for it was approved last week. Construction is expected to begin as soon as next spring, hopefully in time for a 2011 opening.

While I'm sure the new airport will be much better for aircraft, I'll sure miss landing on that mesa with cliffs on all sides of you!

Daytona Beach DAB is getting a 2nd ILS. 25R (currently only a BC of 7L) is going to get it's a glideslope and it's own localizer, making it useful for an ILS. Not sure exactly when this will be complete, but I know they are currently in the process of planning it all and surveying.

It's not all too uncommon that we have winds from the west when the weather gets bad, so I think this will be a good addition.

At Texarkana (TXK), AA Eagle added a frequency - now 4 flights p/day - at the begiining of September.

In other news, TXK was awarded two FAA grants recently. One is for the purpose of constructing a new roadway. The other toward the construction of a new ARFF station. Both projects will be sited in the southern section of the airfield (south of the runway 4-22/13-31 intersection.)

This area has also been selected as the site of a proposed new passenger terminal. The Texarkana Airport Authority has engaged three architecture firms for preliminary design concepts.

I also want to add for DAB that our perimeter airport road is almost complete. There is one last section to be complete. This road has already had a huge impact on the airport that can be seen in various situations. One notable use was during the Pepsi 400, vans could use the road to ferry people from one side of the airport to the other, to reach their FBO, without having to contact ground, or go outside the airport fence. Other use is that fuel trucks no longer have to cross runways, preventing any possible mishaps. I know most airports do already have perimeter roads, so we know how useful they are. But seeing it being utilitized at such a 'small' (commerical-wise that is) airport is a great thing.

I have often been wondering how long it would take to travel the complete distance of the perimeter road on one of our tugs. Estimates place a ball park figure around 30 minutes. You have to know the DAB airport diagram and know that the road goes around every single end of each runway and into just about every corner.

RDM- the airport serving the rapidly growing Central Oregon region centered around Bend is doubling their terminal space. The expansion will move much of the TSA operation to a new basement thus uncluttering the terminal.

They are also working on a plan which will radically alter the airport. Currently the airfield has two runways which cross each other. Under the new plan the runway running NW/SE will close and a second paralell NE/SW runway will be built. A new midfield terminal will be built. Together this should provide a framework which should be able to accomodate all forseeable future growth. Ambitious for such a small metro.

The current population of the area in 2006 was 198,550. In 1990 this was only 102,745.

In 1997 the airport had 221,000 passengers. By 2006 this had grown to 427,000.

RST recently added a 7th Eagle flight in the evening - this matches the number of flights by NW to MSP (though not the seat count!).

We also had 18 diversions from MSP last Thursday...including an A330 and a 753. Very cool stuff.