CITY AND FAA STRIKE DEAL ON AIRPORT TOWER

The city of Cape Girardeau and the Federal Aviation Administration have finalized a deal to allow the city to operate the tower at Cape Girardeau Regional Airport.

The city will assume operation of the air traffic control tower effective Jan. 1. The FAA announced in late November that it planned to eliminate funding to operate the Cape Girardeau tower and numerous others nationwide.

"We are just glad the city could get things worked out to keep this asset open for the community," said Greg Chenoweth, airport manager.

The city allocated reserve funds to pay for tower operation through the first half of 1996. In the meantime, other funding sources will be sought to keep the tower permanently open.

"We hope to make a long-term commitment, but on short notice we decided to try funding the tower through this budget year," said Michael Miller, Cape Girardeau city manager. "The question of continued funding will be decided during the budget process for next year."

Tower operation carried a $170,000 annual price tag. However, after employing some cost-saving measures, the city will pay $77,000 to operate the tower during the first six months of 1996, Miller said.

The money will come from existing sources in the airport budget originally allocated for other purposes, which Miller did not detail. It was decided, he said, that keeping the tower was a higher priority.

John Oliver, a Cape Girardeau lawyer and member of the Missouri State Highway and Transportation Commission, said the commission has recommend that state legislators approve about $750,000 in the state transportation department's budget next year to fund airport towers.

The Cape Girardeau airport will find some savings through a reduction in the salaries of the tower's five air traffic controllers -- one full-time employee and four part-timers. Under FAA management, those salaries had to fall within federal guidelines. However, because they will now be city employees, the federal scale no longer applies.

Miller said cost reductions will not detrimentally affect service.

"Actually, we plan to increase the number of hours the tower is open. In that respect, the airborne public will be better served," Miller said.

Daily hours of operation will change from 14 hours in the summer and 12 in the winter to 14 hours year round.

"Under the FAA contract, they told us what hours we had to be open," Chenoweth said.

The FAA required the tower to be open only from 6 a.m to 6 p.m. Hours of operation will change to 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.

"We just feel those would be hours more conducive to handling air traffic," Chenoweth said.

The FAA will turn ownership of the tower and the air traffic control equipment over to the city at no cost. However, if the city should falter in its attempt to allocate permanent funding, ownership will revert back to the FAA.

The tower will be designated a Non-Federal Control Tower, one of 36 in the country.

John Turner, central regional administrator for the FAA, said the FAA "will continue to provide the necessary certification and quality assurance support to maintain the exemplary safety record of this airport."