Cape airport awaiting FAA OK for new terminal plan

Cape Girardeau Regional Airport manager Katrina Amos told the city's airport advisory board Tuesday she expects to have "a conversation" with the Federal Aviation Authority within two weeks about the airport's plan for a new passenger terminal.

"(The FAA) may approve it or it may ask for modifications," said Amos, who succeeded longtime airport manager Bruce Loy in February.

For now, Amos said, the airport is waiting on Washington.

"We're sort of in a holding pattern," she said.

Airport officials and consultants from St. Louis-based consulting firm Crawford, Murphy and Tilly submitted a plan to the FAA late last year for a proposed 18,300-square-foot terminal, just northeast of the current facility in northern Scott County.

"We looked at six terminal concepts," Amos said, "and we chose the least expensive, most conservative option," adding the current terminal houses roughly 13,000-square-feet under roof.

The terminal site proposal is part of the Terminal Access Master Plan (TAMP), which, among other things, proposes six additional "box" hangars and 15 new T-hangers to accommodate aircraft in what Amos expects will be a flourishing market for airline travel as early as the end of 2021 -- once the pandemic runs its course.

Funding

TAMP projects will be funded in part by the city's capital improvements sales tax and also by some proceeds of the $17.5 million Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act grant, Amos said.

"Use of the CARES money is a one-time opportunity and there is a deadline to use the funds," she said, adding airport officials are being "fiscally responsible" in the grant's expenditure.

Air traffic data

Passenger volume, what the industry calls "enplanements," were at a low ebb once the pandemic took hold in early spring, Amos said.

"We hit rock bottom with 51 enplanements in April," she said, the lowest total at the Cape Girardeau Airport, once known as Harris Field, since 2008.

"We anticipated 4,900 total enplanements in 2020 and we were almost spot on with 4,578," Amos told advisory panel members meeting via Zoom.

According to a report prepared for the advisory board, for October through December, the airport saw passenger volume, via SkyWest Air flights, rise to more than 400 enplanements in each of those months.

SkyWest, part of United Airlines, flies twice each day to Chicago's O'Hare Airport.

Because of depressed demand, SkyWest cut back to one flight daily from Cape Girardeau in May and June.

The carrier resumed its regular schedule of flights in July.