New airport terminal readies for takeoff

It looks as if all those concerned are on board for the proposed new terminal at the Springfield-Branson Regional Airport. There are 722,000 reasons why, according to Gary Cyr, the airport’s director of aviation.
That’s the number of passengers who passed through the airport in 2004, setting an all-time record.
Cyr stated the new passenger figures – an 11 percent increase over 2003 – at Springfield City Council’s Feb. 22 luncheon.
The new passenger counts that topped the previous record of approximately 711,000 in 2000 support the airport’s new terminal plans, which would have capacity for 1.2 million passengers. The airport expects to reach that figure by 2016.
“No other airport in our four-state region experienced the growth that we did,” Cyr said, naming airports in Kansas City; Wichita, Kan.; Omaha, Neb.; and Sioux City, Iowa, and all the airports in the central region area. “And in January 2005, over January 2004, we experienced 20 percent growth. If we even can keep that at an 8 (percent) or 9 percent increase for the rest of the year, you can see where we’re headed with that.”
Cyr added that passengers are not the only people who go through the airport terminal.
“Using the ratio that I have traditionally used to determine how many people go in and out of the terminal, more than 2
million people passed through the terminal in 2004,” he said. That calculation uses a figure of 2.1 people passing through the airport for each passenger, including family members and greeters.
Cyr said the airport also increased the number of available seats on flights leaving the airport by 400 per day in 2004.

Viva Las Vegas
Passenger activity is not expected to slow, considering that the airport is adding nonstop flights to Las Vegas in April, and two other new destinations are on the airport’s radar screen.
Airport officials announced Feb. 17 that Las Vegas-based Allegiance Air LLC would provide nonstop flights to Las Vegas beginning April 21 with especially low introductory rates.
Cyr said in his presentation that the airport hopes to name another new destination this year.
The airport currently offers nonstop service to eight locations: Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Denver, Detroit, Memphis, Minneapolis/St. Paul, and St. Louis.
And the number of locations that can be reached with only one stop is much higher.
“We asked (Cyr) to see if he could put together a map of all the one-stop locations, and he couldn’t do it,” said City Manager Tom Finnie. “It would have looked like a spider web – hundreds and hundreds of locations.”
Cyr said the amount of movement through the airport is starting to create some difficulties.
“Our existing terminal – for what takes place today between security, safety and all those other issues – is becoming out-of-date and capacity has been reached,” he said. “Right now I’m double-parking two jets on the jet bridge at night, and I’ve been doing that activity for a number of months now.”
The current terminal also presents challenges in terms of meeting Federal Aviation Administration safety and security requirements, including barriers for larger aircraft to be able to safely pass each other. Those requirements also include post-Sept. 11 regulations calling for more stringent passenger screening, which requires new and cumbersome security equipment that the current facility cannot accommodate.

Future needs
A new terminal, and not an expansion of the current building, would be the ideal solution to those hardships, Cyr said.
“In 1999, we did a terminal area study of our existing facility,” he said. “The study found that once we reached the 450,000 to 500,000 passenger-enplanement level, we should be looking at a replacement terminal. We did a benefit cost analysis for a replacement facility, and a new facility would save 20 percent over expanding the current building. The design of the replacement terminal remedies our current issues with regards to gate space, parking, safety, (and) security.”
Cyr added that the design, which would include 16 gates initially, could be expanded to include as many as 60 gates to meet future demand.
“We have put a lot of effort into the site location of this replacement terminal,” he said. “We’ve removed it quite a bit away from the runways, so that 20 or 30 or 40 years from now, we’re not going to be in that landlocked situation again.”
The expansion should cost $180.2 million, which airport officials expect to be covered through airport revenue and federal grants.
The board should begin taking bids in May for the first phase of construction, which includes clearing and grading the land and installing utilities. Work should begin in late winter or early spring of 2006, with a hopeful opening date in 2008.