BigPlaneGuy13 wrote:This is really interesting. After looking over this, my question is: if this expansion were to ocurr, would there be a need to construct an additional runway? Potentially a 26/8 L and R? Seems like a lot of added capacity. How is this measured? Thanks!
The city has wanted a fourth runway for more than a decade. It's more than likely never going to happen, or at least not for a very, very long time. I doubt the circumstances have changed, but the issue before was primarily Honeywell. Honeywell has a 100 year lease on that property with no intention of leaving. I believe it would also require a realignment of the light rail, which was also seen as effectively a non-starter.
In any case, PHX doesn't need a fourth runway anytime soon, and that conversation is probably at least two decades away barring some sort of explosive growth. The runway usage isn't high enough to warrant a multi-billion dollar expense, because the return on investment would take decades. That federal funding is better spent on other airports with more dire needs for additional runway capacity. I think the best decision if/when the airport starts becoming capacity constrained is to begin offloading capacity onto IWA. After all, that's exactly what it exists for. IWA will be better positioned as a reliever airport whenever they manage to get their permanent terminal complex project moving, but the major infrastructure is already in place. Building a new, massively expensive runway at PHX is a bit of a waste when three perfectly serviceable 11,000ft. runways exist less than 20 miles away.
