Roanoke’s Great Runway Snafu

For 10 years Roanoke has dilly-dallied over the needed extension to Airport Runway 23. Still there is no extension, audit appears time is running out.

This summer marks the 10th anniversary of Roanoke Municipal Airport’s Master Plan calling for a 900-foot extension to Runway 5-23.

In those 10 years the plan has been chewed and rechewed, studied and restudied, “cussed” and discussed. And still there is no runway extension.

And although the present city administration is pursuing the matter more vigorously than its predecessors did, the extension still is not beyond the study stages, and funding for the project appears bleak at best.

With each year that drags by, Roanoke’s traditionally high quality and quantity of air service is seriously jeopardized. (According to Airport Manager Bob Poole, a documented needs study concluded that only one other U.S. airport that enplanes as many passengers as Roanoke has a shorter runway.)

Since airline deregulation in 1978 Piedmont Airlines, Roanoke’s only major air carrier, has joined the big league and grown at a phenomenal rate, but unless something is done quickly Piedmont may soar right off and leave Roanoke behind.

And then what?

It is a question people concerned with the valley’s growth and development should be asking themselves.

For the past 30 years Roanoke has been the hub, the connecting point, in Piedmont’s system. Now that distinction has moved to Charlotte. N.C., which recently built a new north-south runway and is currently constructing a new terminal.

The shift in emphasis from Roanoke to Charlotte is due primarily to Roanoke’s short (5,900-foot) runway and the city’s inability to get that runway extended.

Back in the days when Piedmont’s fleet consisted of small YS-11 prop-jets, a longer runway was not needed. But Piedmont is growing and changing. The Winston-Salem based airline is phasing out its YS-11’s and replacing them with 112-seat Boeing 737’s. By the end of 1983 Piedmont is expected to have an all 737 fleet of 62 jets. Piedmont also is looking at bigger planes for the future, such as the 180-seat Boeing 757, the 200-seat Boeing 767 and the Airbus Industries A310 which has 237 seats. None of the latter could be operated out of Woodrum Field with the present runway.

But the short runway already presents major problems. Piedmont’s 737 jets cannot leave Woodrum with a full passenger load and a full fuel load in warm weather. Because of the increased density of the air, it takes longer for a fully loaded plane to get off the ground on warm days. Woodrum’s runways are not long enough to allow for the additional acceleration, therefore as the temperature climbs. Piedmont planes flying out of Roanoke must reduce their loads. On a long-haul flight, such as those to New York and Chicago, it is not feasible to shed fuel, so the number of passengers must be reduced.

These adverse conditions can force a 112-seat airplane to carry as many as 56 empty seats, which are called “load seats.” And load seats mean lost revenue for the airline.

Passenger loads out of Roanoke are automatically restricted during the summer, but often an unexpected rise in the temperature means the airline must settle an amount of money on the inconvenienced ticket holders who are denied boarding.

A year ago Jack Smith, executive vice president of the Roanoke Valley Chamber of Commerce and chairman of the Airport Advisory Commission, did a study of Piedmont’s losses due to load seats out of Roanoke and concluded that the lost revenue amounted to about $4.5 million between March 1979 and March 1980.

William R. Howard, Piedmont’s new president, formerly executive vice president, explains the implications of those losses: “It’s something that we don’t like. It makes Roanoke undesirable compared to some other cities where we don’t have those problems. So as we look at all the factors when we try to decide whether to put an airplane into Roanoke or say Charleston, W. Va., instead, that is a consideration. It generally does not turn a profitable flight into an unprofitable one, but it takes one that could have been quite profitable and makes it only marginally profitable. On the other hand, we have some days where it is clearly unprofitable. And that’s what the airline business is all about – to try to balance some very good with some bad days, and this cuts into our very good days.”

Last July, Howard sent a rather strong letter to Roanoke City officials warning that unless something is done about the situation, the city will suffer inevitably as Piedmont phases out its old planes and adds new ones.

“I wanted everybody to understand what the problem was,” says Howard. “Mr. Ewert(Roanoke city manager) was new at the time; he picked up the ball. He’s been very aggressive. Congressman (Caldwell) Butler also has been very helpful since being apprised of the situation and shown some other cities that have done much better so far as airport improvements with federal money. I do have the impression it is moving.”
And moving it is, albeit slowly. In November 1980, four months after receiving Howard’s letter, Ewert persuaded city council to hire Delta Associates, Inc., to get the ball rolling once again on the extension project. Phase I, consisting of a construction feasibility analysis, preliminary design and cost estimate, was expected to be completed by the end of May 1981, as was what Kit Kiser, the city’s director of utilities and operations, calls a “rechewing” of the Environmental Impact Assessment Study. That study was commissioned in December 1975. Three and a half years later Ralph Burke Associates submitted its final EIAS report. It has been modified and revised four times.

Airport Manager Bob Poole and Kiser both claim the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) keeps changing the rules. Jim Harvey, city council’s liaison on the Airport Advisory Commission, concurs.“As soon as we get a study almost completed or complete, they come back and say, ‘Youneed a new study.’ “

Phase II of the present runway extension project will be the actual construction drawing and specifications. Total cost of both phases is $235,506, all to come from the city’s airport fund. Everything along the way must be approved by the FAA and the state, and bids must be received before federal money for the construction project will be granted. And that is where things start to look grim, indeed.

Federal grants for airport improvements come through the Airport Development Aid Program, simply called ADAP. Although ADAP reportedly has several billion dollars in its fund, the program was allowed to expire last Sept. 30, and it is not expected to be renewed until late this summer, possibly in July. That means that until the ADAP program is renewed by Congress, no money will be available to airports.

There is little danger that ADAP will not be renewed, but how much money will be available to airports is the question.

William A. Whittle, chief of the Washington Airports District of the FAA, says a major problem for Roanoke is the size of its request, estimated now at between $12 and $15 million.

The project calls not only for extending the east-west runway and providing a parallel taxiway, but relocating State Route 118 (Airport Road) by either tunneling under the runway or building the road around the runway.

Whittle holds out little hope that the entire request for funds will be met.

“Our program is not geared to provide that kind of money,” he explains, adding that to his knowledge never in the Washington District and only a few times in the entire country has such a large sum been allotted.

Whittle seems to think the best Roanoke might get is an advancement on its entitlement funds. (Every airport gets a certain amount of entitlement money from the federal government each year based on the number of enplanements. Roanoke’s entitlement comes to only about $ 1 million a year. These funds can be accumulated or advanced for a period of three years, but no longer. If the money is not spent within three years, it is forfeited. Therefore if Roanoke relied upon its entitlement funds, the most it could hope for would be about $3 million. Furthermore, entitlement money is usually spent on airport maintenance projects.)

The city’s other hope for funding is through a special legislative amendment to the ADAP bill. But having just gone through Reagan’s budget cuts, Congress is not likely to be in a mood to grant $15 million to a small airport in Western Virginia. If there are other funding alternatives available, the city is not pursuing them. The obvious alternative is a bond issue, but the city just had a bond issue, and according to Kit Kiser the city is not considering another one to finance the full runway extension project at this time.

Apparently city officials share an abiding hope that the FAA grant will come through and pay for 90 percent of the cost. The remaining 10 percent would then have to come from state and city coffers.

Bob Poole says he cannot imagine that the extension will not be funded “somewhere down the road.”Jim Harvey, himself a pilot, says he does not see how the runway extension can be turned down. “We need it; it’s not like it’s some kind of frill. I just don’t see how it can be continually put on the back burner.”

Although it is officially soft-pedaled, there is general agreement that politics, as well as federal red tape, has played a part in the long delays in getting the runway extended. Past city officials have been accused of foot-dragging, and only recently have local Congressmen been prevailed upon to help.

“I think politically it looks better now than it has in the past,” says Harvey.

Whittle of the FAA has worked with the city on its request, and he says that as far as he is concerned “Ewert and Kiser and the bunch down there are doing all they possibly can to make the runway extension a reality.”

The present city administration has at least been able to convince Piedmont that the city really does want to build the extension. There may have been some doubt about that in the past.

Howard credits Ewert as being the “one who got the thing moving after many years of no progress.”

“I think Piedmont’s management in our corporate headquarters in Winston-Salem are firmly convinced that the current city administration has gone all out to get this runway,” says Roanoke Piedmont Station Manager Art Whitaker, “The present administration has come forth to our company saying, ‘We’re going to get this, thing done and it’s a top priority with us.’ And that made us feel real good. And that’s the message we’re putting out to our pilot group and the passengers we have to pull off the planes.”

Apparently the pilots are a little harder to convince.

“Roanoke is the only airport we operate jets into that has this short a runway,” says Whitaker. “And don’t you think that isn’t a bone of contention with the pilot personnel. I have one particular captain who says, ‘I’m not going to cut my fuel load anymore,’ He said, ‘We keep accommodating the people that ought to be working on this runway and from now on we’re going to call it as we see it. I’am going to take the fuel and if it kicks the people off, it kicks the people off. Maybe if we get to the point where we kick enough off, maybe if we kick the right people off . . .’ “

In the 10 years since Roanoke officially recognized the need for a longer runway, similar projects have been started and completed in Beckley and Lewisburg, W. Va., in Charlotte and at Tri-Cities in Tennessee.

During the decade that Roanoke spent studying its runway problem, Charlotte built an entire new runway at a cost of $25 million, despite a three-year injunction imposed while an environmental impact suit was being litigated. A good sized portion of the $25 million came from FAA discretionary funds over a period of years. The City of Charlotte started buying land for the runway in the early 1970’s. Earth work began in 1973, then in 1975 a court injunction halted construction until the court ruled in the city’s favor three years later. The runway was paved in 1978 and opened in 1979.

Charlotte’s new $55.6 million terminal is being financed with $47 million in general obligation bonds, $3 million of airport revenues and $5.6 in FAA entitlement funds. In 1975 just before the injunction, Charlotte voters had rejected a referendum asking voter approval of the sale of $55 million in general obligation bonds. After the airport won its court case in 1978 a new campaign was mounted to win public support, and the referendum that year passed overwhelmingly.

Jerry Orr, assistant manager of engineering and operations for the City of Charlotte, feels the difference in public acceptance was due to the way the issue was presented. It was also helped by the airport’s long-term agreement with and guarantees from the airlines (Piedmont, Eastern, Delta and United) that should the airport default on the bonds, the airlines would bail it out, therefore eliminating the burden from the taxpayers’ shoulders.

Art Whitaker sums up the problem. “When we were talking and studying other cities were building, and I don’t know what motivated them to do what we didn’t do.”

One thing the Roanoke area did not do is present a united front. Although owned solely by the city of Roanoke, the airport is a regional facility. Of the 381,000 people who boarded planes at Woodrum Field last year, not all were Roanoke City residents. Undoubtedly many of them were residents of Roanoke County, yet the county government has been the staunchest opponent of the runway extension, because planes using the east-west runway fly over homes that are located in Roanoke County. Naturally those affected homeowners already plagued by noisy aircraft fear bigger, louder and more frequent problems if the runway is extended another 900 feet in their direction. So they oppose it.

Consultant Larry Donoghue, who present-ed the Environmental Impact Assessment Study at a public hearing in May 1979, told a group of about 200 opponents that with the increased use of jets the noise would continue to be a problem even if nothing were done to the runway. He said the runway extension itself would not add to the noise level in their neighborhood, that it might even reduce it. The residents were not convinced.

Wayne Compton, current Roanoke County Commissioner of Revenue, who was on the County Board of Supervisors at the time, called the environmental impact study a a “whitewash report,” and charged that the consultant had his mind made up in favor of the extension before he ever began the study.

Compton, who has been a most vocal opponent of the runway extension, contends it is not needed, is a waste of money and designed to serve only one industry: Piedmont.

Besides that, Compton says, because of its location Woodrum Field can never be an all-weather airport so it makes more sense to start all over and build a regional all-weather airport. He suggests Penhook as a possible location.

“Why spend $12 million on a runway when you can spend $60 million and start all over?” he asks.

The mere thought of moving the airport out of the Roanoke Valley turns industrial developers pale. The presence of a viables and easily accessible airport is a decided plus when trying to convince businesses to locate here.

Not so, says Compton. “I could take that $15 million and put up 10 new factories and do 10 times more good than a runway extension.”

In an effort to boost its case with the FAA, the city asked for resolutions of support from the area governments. Salem, Vinton and Botetourt County responded favorably. Roanoke County supervisors went on record asking the county attorney to take whatever steps necessary to protect the interests of Roanoke County.

“Now that doesn’t really say much,” says County Administrator Bill dark, “but I would say it is not a statement of support.”

What importance the county’s stand against the extension may have on the FAA approval is not known.

Whittle says it has no bearing, but he points out that a united citizen appeal to Congress and local officials might help in finding alternative sources of funding.

As it stands now the city is negotiating to buy six houses which are already affected by noise at the airport. Others in a lesser noise zone will be offered sums of money for noise diminution devices, such as storm windows and insulation. According to Riser the runway extension will require no further purchases of homes, although three to four acres of land may be needed.

Every five years then the noise levels will be reassessed to see if further settlements should be made.

Nobody wants to talk about what happens if the runway is not extended, but the question hangs heavy in the air.

Jack Smith and Bob Poole do not think Piedmont will completely pull its service out of Roanoke if the runway is not lengthened, but both expect deterioration in the service.

Even without the runway extension the airport will continue to grow with general aviation and commuter traffic, Poole believes. Air carrier traffic last year was less than a third that of general aviation traffic. Commuter (Air Virginia and Aeromech which together have 16 flights a day out of Roanoke) enplanements last year totaled 8,862, compared to only 1,068 the year before.

Without the runway extension, however, the non-stop flights to major eastern cities which Roanoke now enjoys could be lost.

But all of the losses are not off in the “what ifs” of the future. Repercussions from the outdated runway are already being felt.

In the past year Piedmont flights have dropped from 46 a day to the current 37 a day, while the Charlotte schedule has increased from 24 to 51 flights a day.

“For 30 years Roanoke was the number one city in Piedmont’s system with the greatest number of flights per day. In March 1981 I lost that distinction to Charlotte,” says Whitaker.

Whitaker says he believes if Roanoke had had a runway with no restrictions it would have been considered for the connecting complex that recently went to Charlotte. (A complex is a number of planes that arrive at the same time and feed to each other.)

As it turned out, Whitaker says, Roanoke, which had been the connector city in Piedmont’s system for 30 years, was not even considered.

Having the complex in Roanoke would have retained emphasis on the valley and provided long-haul jet flights that people now go to Charlotte to connect with.

Piedmont now flies non-stop from Charlotte to Boston, Chicago, Dallas/ Fort Worth, Houston, Miami/Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Pittsburgh, Tampa and Washington. Non-stop flights from Roanoke include Chicago, Newark, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Washington.

William Howard denies that Roanoke has lost its importance within the system. He says Piedmont is not a one-hub airline. He says he considers Roanoke a hub and Charlotte a hub, and Piedmont will be establishing a third, as yet undisclosed, hub in a year or so.

But of all the airports Piedmont still serves, Roanoke is the only one with runway problems. And even the 900-foot extension will not entirely eliminate the problem. Runway conditions still won’t be ideal, Howard says, but it “would be something we can live with.”

“It will eliminate 60 percent of the problem,” Howard says, “It does not mean we will never be impacted on hot days, but it takes the sharp edge off the problem.”

Meanwhile plans are going forth to improve what is there. The new access road to the airport has been completed. The baggage handling area, departure lounges and rest room facilities will be enlarged.

But time is of the essence. Roanoke does not have another 10 years to waste. Citizens who want continued high quality air carrier service will see to it that the extension of Runway 5-23 does not get lost in the shuffle of paper work and red tape and apathy again. The alternative is for Roanoke, which for years has enjoyed more and better air service than most cities its size, to have its municipal airport reduced to a commuter port where people get on small planes to fly to bigger airports to connect to bigger planes.

SIDEBAR
Runway Chronology
Following is a chronology of efforts to get the east-west Runway 5-23 at Roanoke Municipal Airport extended, from its present 5,900 feet to a length of 6,800 feet.

July 27,1971: FAA concurs in the need of the extension of Runway 5-23, as proposed in the Airport Master Plan.
August 13, 1971: Master Plan for Roanoke Municipal Airport approved by city council, forwarded to Federal Aviation Administration. Plan addresses the need of Runway Extension 5-23.
February 7, 1973: FAA formally approves Airport Master Plan.
November 17, 1973: City council approves concept of a 900-foot extension to Runway 5-23. September, 1974: “Narrative Report1974 National Transportation Study Commonwealth of Virginia” – excerpts and comments relative to the aviation section states the extension of Runway 5-23 should be funded within the 1980 interim plan framework.
December 22, 1975: Environmental Impact Assessment Study preparation contract approved by city council, which appropriated $20.000 to contractual services.
July 28,1977: Blue Ridge Area Transportation System Study documents need for runway extension.
May 16, 1979: Public Hearing for runway extension environmental impact study.
September 6, 1979: Environmental Impact Assessment Report (EIAR)submitted in final plan by Ralph Burke Associates. September 12, 1979: City council authorizes the City Manager to file the EIAR and applications for grant funds with the FAA.
December 4,1979: EIAR submitted to FAA, Commonwealth of Virginia and Council of the Environment, Richmond, Va. by Ralph Burke Associates.
July 17, 1980: Need of prompt action for runway extension expressed by letter to Mayor Noel Taylor from W. R. Howard, vice president of Piedmont Airlines.
July 19, 1980: Letter to Timothy L.Hartnett, FAA chief of Airports Division, from City Manager Ewert requesting immediate reply as to the status of the EIAR.
August 15, 1980: Request for proposals sent to three prospective engineering firms.
September 19,1980: Engineering firms submit proposals to city engineer.
November 11, 1980: Administrative committee holds interviews with engineering firms.

 

Originally published in 1980 in The Roanoker