Texas airport grows over 25 years
In the late 1980s, the economy of Fort Worth, Texas, was reeling from defense cuts and the associated job losses. At the same time, the FAA was conducting a study on airport capacity at Dallas/Fort Worth International, Dallas Love Field, and Forth Worth Meacham International airports. When those intersected with land that had been acquired by a nascent developer, the result was a new kind of public airport. Fort Worth Alliance Airport opened on December 14, 1989, and celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary last December.
“The FAA was looking to create a new airport model for the DFW area,” said Tom Harris, president of Alliance Air/Aviation Services. “Alliance, Texas, was really a vision Ross Perot Sr. and Ross Perot Jr. had in the mid-1980s,” he explained. Perot had sold Electronic Data Systems, founded in 1962, to General Motors and used the proceeds to purchase a large amount of land in north Fort Worth. “The FAA approached them and asked them to consider donating some of this land for use as an airport.”
Ross Perot Jr.—a passionate aviator who flies a Northrup T–38 and a Bell helicopter—had a concept for an industrial airport. He found an enthusiastic partner in Bob Bolen, then mayor of Fort Worth, who sought to create jobs that would replace those the city had lost. Bolen, Fort Worth’s mayor from 1982 to 1991, died in January 2014.
The Alliance name was chosen to reflect the partnership between the City of Fort Worth, the FAA, and Hillwood—a real estate investment and development company led by Perot Jr. “This airport is a great example of a public/private partnership,” said Harris.
Alliance comprises 18,000 acres in several tracts. The City of Fort Worth owns the airport—as well as Meacham and Fort Worth Spinks Airport, a GA reliever located south of the city—and it’s operated by Alliance Air Services, a Hillwood subsidiary. On the rest of that land, Hillwood has constructed some 60 million square feet of building space—from warehouses and offices to call centers, data centers, and retail—with the capacity to accommodate another 120 million square feet.
The opening of a large intermodal rail terminal in 1992 opened the distribution floodgates. Fifty trains of double-stacked shipping containers per week arrive from the Port of Long Beach, Harris said. “It’s a huge driver of our warehouse development.” Warehouse buildings range from 180,000 to 1.3 million square feet; facilities for Amazon and Walmart are among the largest.
In 1994, FedEx opened its Southwest Regional Sort Hub on the field, which sees 20 to 24 nightly flights. Alliance’s parallel runways—currently 9,600 feet and 8,220 feet—both are being extended to 11,000 feet. Most of the former American Airlines maintenance base at Alliance was leased in February to GDC Technics, a San Antonio, Texas-based aircraft modification company. Bell Helicopter trains pilots and mechanics, using a separate landing area north of the airport for pilots to practice.
In September 2014, Tarrant County College opened a $20 million aviation learning center. The three-story, 163,500-square-foot facility offers training in logistics and supply chain management as well as airframe maintenance, avionics technology, and professional pilot training.
Alliance Aviation’s staff of 25 provides a full range of FBO services. In addition to line service, the FBO handles cargo charters, and coordinates Customs services for passengers and cargo. Rental and courtesy cars, conference rooms, and a pilots’ lounge are available. Maintenance is offered by third-party providers.
At its twenty-fifth anniversary, Alliance has grown to 400 companies and 40,000 employees; $8 billion has been invested and it’s had a $55 billion economic impact on the region, Harris said. That growth includes significant residential and commercial development. “It’s a great success story when you think of where we were 25 years ago.”
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Images: Nine beech king airs, operated by the FAA Flight Standards Service’s flight program, call this Alliance Airport hangar home (top). A statue of Bob Bolen, the Fort Worth mayor instrumental in the airport’s creation, stands below the air traffic control tower (top right).
