AOPA President Phil Boyer visits as many GA airports as possible each year.
Annually, in the last 15 years, your association has conducted research aimed at helping us direct our advocacy in the regulatory and legislative areas towards what you deem important. This "Policy and Issues" survey helps guide your AOPA Government and Technical Affairs division in directing resources toward initiatives important to our members. Consistently, you have told us that your greatest concern is the loss of general aviation airports and your continued access to those airports. In overwhelming numbers we have clearly seen that preserving airports should be our number-one priority. AOPA devotes considerable time, resources, and talent to ensuring the continued viability of GA airports throughout the country. In addition to 13 AOPA regional representatives, AOPA staff at headquarters has increased dramatically to allow us to better address your stated priority. While in past years most threatened airports were privately owned but open for public use, there is an alarming trend developing. More and more airports that are owned by public sponsors such as local municipalities or airport authorities are being threatened with closure attempts. As urban land becomes scarce, local real estate developers increasingly eye the vast open expanse of GA airports as prime developable land.
Just more than a year ago, the Contra Costa County board of supervisors, bowing to "an offer they could not refuse," entertained offers from large developers to submit a plan for commercial redevelopment of Concord Buchanan Field (CCR) in Concord, California. If ever there was a model of a large GA airport, this is one, with more than 600 based aircraft and 156,000 annual operations. Facing stiff opposition from AOPA, local and well-organized pilot groups, the FAA, and key members of Congress, the county turned a deaf ear on those opponents and instead issued a request for proposals (RFP) to convert the airport to residential and commercial use. The good news, if there is any, is that the RFP required the developer to identify a replacement airport site in the county. The bad news is that when the proposal was submitted by a local developer consortium, the proposed replacement airport was nowhere near an "equal to or better than" one required by the FAA — assuming the agency was even interested in allowing the county to close and move the airport.
Contra Costa County isn't the only government body to turn its back on federal laws protecting airports. The City of Rialto, California, isn't far behind. Located just east of Ontario, California, Rialto Airport, with 250 based aircraft and 125,000 annual operations, is a designated reliever airport for Ontario International Airport. The city council last year conducted an "Airport Asset Strategy Study" to explore the airport's future. Three scenarios surfaced — close the airport, downsize the airport, or relocate the airport. However, relocate really means move the tenants to an existing airport and redevelop the Rialto property for industrial/residential use. Elected officials are ignoring their promises to the federal government — promises in the form of grant obligations agreed to when the city accepted federal funding from the FAA. More than $9 million has been invested by the FAA to purchase land for airport expansion. These funds have obligations that never expire! Yet local governments continue to allow developers to lead them astray. In each of these cases, AOPA received information very early in the process that enabled us to represent your interests and defend these GA airports. Obtaining early information that an airport is potentially in jeopardy was the basic premise on which the AOPA Airport Support Network (ASN) was founded in 1997.
The ASN "early warning system" is designed to combat these and future closures by appointing volunteers at airports nationwide who serve as the eyes and ears on the local level. With more than 1,700 ASN volunteers involved, it's a resounding success.
At AOPA Expo last fall, FAA Administrator Marion Blakey acknowledged the enormous success of the ASN program when she said, "The Airport Support Network is a terrific idea. You're saying loud and clear: If you want to get at my airport, you're going to have to come through me! These volunteer advocates are an early warning system that really works."
Protecting airports and your access to them takes more than local and FAA involvement. When the Minnesota Senate held a public hearing on possibly closing the Crystal, Minnesota, airport, one of Metropolitan Airport Commission's six reliever airports in the Twin-Cities area, AOPA's Vice President of Airports Bill Dunn testified at the hearing opposing the closure. When significant GA airport capacity was lost in the Austin, Texas, area, AOPA took the issue to the state capital and passed legislation requiring the state to build a new GA airport. When Ohio, Florida, and Iowa introduced legislation to implement somewhat onerous security restrictions on GA operators, we took up that fight. We've partnered with states such as Tennessee, South Dakota, New Jersey, and Massachusetts to promote AOPA's Airport Watch so local governments understand GA airports are not a threat and mandatory access restrictions are unnecessary.
AOPA is on the frontlines for your local airport, and we're not averse to taking the battle to all levels of government. On the regulatory side, we work with the FAA in Washington D.C., or the FAA regional airport district offices, and with state aviation departments. Responding to member concerns about airports is not an easy assignment, but when you tell us local airports are most important to you, we listen and act.
