In late July, Manhattan Regional Airport received a grant of $5.3 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The airport is using the funds to rebuild and extend runway 13/31, the airports' auxiliary runway.

The runway, according to a city commission memo, was not up to Federal Aviation Administration regulations. Peter Van Kuren, director of the airport, confirmed the contents of the memo, saying the strip of runway is in serious need of repair.

"The purpose behind the construction and extension was, one: to reconstruct it. It had significant problems with cracks that prevented its use by some aircraft," Van Kuren said. "Two: to extend it to allow a second option for pilots in case Runway 1 was being used or the wind was blowing a certain way."

HWS Consulting Firm, an engineering organization, is overseeing the project, according to Van Kuren. The runway is being extended to a length of 5,000 feet. The extra 2,000 feet on the primary runway support the flights to and from Dallas, something Van Kuren said won't be possible on the auxiliary runway even after it's been extended.

"Over the course of a project like this, things take time and things change," Van Kuren said. "If I had known we were going to [begin hosting flights to/from Dallas], I would have had the runway extended to at least 5,400 feet."

Don Williams, air traffic manager at the airport, said the extension will make the airport safer by allowing larger aircrafts to land at an alternate angle to the wind if the wind is blowing across the main runway.

"It will make our job easier," said Williams. "We'll be able to use it for larger aircrafts in case there is a 20 mile an hour crosswind on the main one; pilots will be able to land right into the wind instead."

Unfortunately, the 50-seat Embraer EJR-145 jets used for the American Eagle flights from Dallas are too large to take advantage of this.

Construction has started at the airport and is expected to be finished by March or April of 2010.

Comments

Be the first to comment on this article!

Add comment


I am not posting spam. I understand posting spam or other comments that are unrelated to this article will cause my comment to be flagged for deletion and possibly cause my IP address to be permanently banned from this server.

Enter the characters in the image above:

log out