AIRPORT SERVICE IMPROVEMENTS LOOK DIM

A meeting last week between Cape Girardeau Municipal Airport representatives and Trans World Express officials yielded little to resolve problems with unreliable service and slipping airport boardings.

Cape Girardeau Public Works Director Doug Leslie told the Airport Advisory Board Wednesday that TWE, the airport's only commercial carrier, considers Cape Girardeau a low priority and has little interest in expanding service here.

Continued complaints about canceled and delayed TWE flights, and poor service have been blamed for declining boardings at the airport. Total TWE boardings at the airport this year through May are 1,976. Last year's total after May was 2,517.

The city last year barely met its goal of 10,000 annual boardings needed to receive $300,000 in Federal Aviation Administration entitlements for airport improvements projects.

Total airport boardings, including Cape Central Airways and Procter and Gamble enplanements, are 3,228 also well below last year's total of 3,920.

"They have no expansion plans in terms of services," Leslie said of TWE. "They're aware of service reliability problems. They're aware of those problems and we wanted to make sure they were."

Leslie said TWE officials assured the city they would work to improve reliability but that they don't consider Cape Girardeau an important market.

"They have many more boardings at all of their other markets," he said. "But their lack of reliability is a large contributing factor to the limited boardings."

Airport board member William Walker, who attended the meeting with the TWE representatives, said the prospect of the air carrier improving service is dim.

"We can expect no effort on their part to do anything about their image or the city's image," Walker said."

But Leslie said one positive outcome of the meeting was that TWE officials encouraged the city to continue to pursue efforts to recruit additional air service from other companies.

Leslie said the city has scheduled a meeting next week with a Texas airline to try to convince the company to serve Cape Girardeau. He said the city also will continue to pursue possible connections with cities other than St. Louis, which is the only destination of TWE flights from Cape Girareau.

In other business, Leslie told the board that some airport improvement projects remain stalled.

A project to provide taxiways and taxiway spurs to a new T-hangar at the airport has been delayed indefinitely because of compaction problems with the wet airport soil. Leslie said the concrete taxiways can't be poured until the sub-soil dries.

The Public Works Director said airport engineers have suggested three options for correcting the problem, which include:

Waiting until late July or August for the soil to dry and try to build the taxiways then.

Excavate about two-feet of materials and try to stabilize the sub-soil base before refilling the site and pouring the taxiways.

Excavate about 30 inches of material, place a special, stabilizing "geo-textile cloth" and pour the taxiways over rock fill.

Leslie said the last two options would cost an additional $45,000 to $50,000, of which the city would pay $2,500 to $5,000. He said the city now is waiting for the airport engineer's recommendation on which option to implement.

The earliest any work would be done is 30 to 60 days. The T-hanger is expected to be completed within weeks, Leslie said.

The board also discussed delays in bidding a contract for renovation of the airport terminal building and plans to re-paint signage on one of the airport runways.

Airport Manager Mark Seesing said the terminal building renovation plans have been redesigned in the hopes the FAA would fund a greater portion of the cost of the project. Last month, FAA officials told the city it would fund a smaller percentage of the costs than the city had projected.

The runway signage project was done early this spring, but the paint already has begun to peel and crack, Seesing said. He said the contractor who did the work will re-paint the runway at no additional cost to the city. The work is expected to be finished within two weeks.