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Greeley, Colorado. |
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Comments unwise use of taxpayer money, mine! Anonymous Anonymous The greatest concern seems to be how much each individual will pay for the operation of the new facility. The cost of operating a contract tower with a rotation of controllers is estimated to be about $250,000 per year. The FAA will issue money to cover the cost of the tower based on the number of operations at the airport. There have been suggestions that the FAA might pay as much as 80% of the overhead. This estimation is based off current operation data the FAA has on file for the Greeley Weld County Airport (GXY). According to some web sites, GXY has 365 operations (takeoff/landing) daily. This is where the proposed plan falls apart. Given that the majority of aircraft fly during daylight, in a 12 hour period this airport has 30 operations every hour or one takeoff /landing every two minutes per official statistics. Any individual that frequents this airport knows that this is certainly not the case. The only time GXY meets this figure is for three hours every Saturday morning when aircraft from the surrounding Front Range airports fly in for breakfast. Outside of the occasional fly in, Greeley airport would be lucky to average 30 operations a day. Its no secret that the more operations an airport has, the more funding it is eligible for. So why not balloon the figures? No one checks, right? Not quite. Let's say we get a tower at Greeley. The tower controllers report all daily operations to the FAA to ensure the airport receives its allocation of grant money. Can anyone see a problem here? If the FAA bases its allocation of funds off actual operations and not on the erroneous operations, funding will be seriously restricted forcing the airport users to pickup the tab. If sufficient money cannot be squeezed out of the tenants through rent or pilots through landing fees, the taxpayers will ultimately become responsible. Do we really need a control tower? Based on a true traffic count, the simple answer is "No." It has been suggested that this new facility would attract more business to the airport, specifically corporate jet traffic. This is a pie in the sky scheme dreamt up to gain approval for airport projects. It was suggested that we needed a larger runway to attract business jets. It was said, "Build it and they will come." Where is the increased traffic? While one cannot deny that it is a welcome addition to the airport, any pilot will tell you that the smaller runway (9/27) is aligned for the prevalent winds. Of course if you watch the windsock close enough you might be able to pick one day in the year when the wind is not aligned to carry out a survey and show the need for a new runway. Naturally, the requirement for additional aircraft safety played a part in the approval process. It was rumored that runway incursions between the three resident deer and jet aircraft were dramatically high that year! (Smile) Then, there was the necessity for a security fence that makes our beloved airport look like a boot camp. What reason could we possible have for these draconian measures? Busy airports qualified for special FAA grants and of course the owners of corporate jets were afraid to leave their aircraft at an unsecured hub like the Greeley Weld County (International) airport for fear they may be vandalized! Again it was said, "Build it and they will come and stay." Where is the additional traffic? It has been rumored in recent weeks, not only did they not come but others may even leave GXY for Fort Collins/Loveland (FNL). Again safety played a role in the approval of the fence. Part of the funding (if not all of it) was actually for a wildlife/game fence due to all those "new runway" incursions. Finally the airport could be secured from vandals and from deer. The only problem with this project was that the game fence could not be placed around the full perimeter of the airport due to insufficient funding. Now the deer only have to trot 300 yards east of the main airport entrance where the eight-foot fence terminates and jump a four-foot fence to play "chicken" with the jet traffic! If only the airport had 500 operations a day, then the funding may have been available. If only. Now would be a good time to state the obvious. While these amenities may be enticing, the simple reality remains that corporate business traffic is attracted by the economy of location. The current business buzz in Northern Colorado is the I-25 corridor between Denver and Ft. Collins. So maybe FNL should be the airport canvassing its citizens for a tower with its vast infrastructure, commercial airline service and Centerra like developments. This is not to say that Greeley will never have a control tower. By current estimates, we should qualify for a tower in 2035. In the interim, we need to set the operations record straight with the FAA, function within our true budget and be proud of our not so busy, little airport. J. P. Anonymous
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