Airports Council International-North America (ACI-NA) applauded the opening of three new runways at major hub airports this week, and commended the airports and the Bush administration for helping to reduce delays and increase aviation efficiency and capacity.
Dulles, O’Hare and Seattle-Tacoma International Airports all celebrated new runway openings on Nov. 20.
Department of Transportation Secretary Mary Peters and Acting Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Robert Sturgell will be on hand to welcome the first flights on the new runways.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the cost of building the three new runways was more than $2 billion, with $676 million in funding from the FAA Airport Improvement Program. However, the majority of the new runways were paid for with the passenger facility charge (PFC) — a local user fee added to the price of airline tickets. PFCs are recommended by airports and, with input from airlines serving that airport, approved by the FAA.
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Recognizing that airports need more resources to help prevent delays and increase airline competition, the House of Representatives passed a multi-year FAA reauthorization bill increasing the ceiling on the PFC user fee from $4.50 to $7.00.
ACI-NA plans to work with both the House and Senate next year on legislation to help airports build additional runways, taxiways and terminals.
“Air travel is projected to grow to 1 billion passengers by 2016. Increasing the PFC user fee is a critical step that Congress must take to provide price and service competition for passengers and to prevent delays and congestion,” said Greg Principato, president of the ACI-NA.
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At Dulles International Airport, the new Runway 1L-19R is a north-south runway, approximately 9,400 feet long and 150 feet wide. It is about a mile west of the current Runway 1L-19R. The numeric designation is the runway’s compass bearing in degrees, divided by 10. The letters stand for left, center, and right.
The new runway will include high-speed exit taxiways and be equipped with an instrument landing system and associated lighting systems.
In recent years, as aircraft operations at Dulles grew, expanding the current three-runway system became a necessity.
The first three runways at Dulles date back to the airport’s 1962 opening. This project adds a fourth runway and paves the way for a future fifth runway. Both runways were approved by an FAA Record of Decision in 2005. Construction of the fourth runway began in 2006, but fifth runway construction is not yet scheduled.
At O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, the new Runway 9L/27R is O’Hare’s first new runway since 1971.
The 7,500-foot-long runway will be used primarily as a bad-weather arrival runway, addressing one of O’Hare’s biggest causes of delay.
It is a Group 5 CAT II/III Runway, designed for planes as large as a Boeing 747. CAT II/III Capability is the best available for landing arriving airplanes in inclement weather.
The runway is also equipped with a state-of-the-art Instrument Landing System as well as embedded weather sensors in the pavement to alert the tower of ice on the runway.
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Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley announced the O’Hare Modernization Program (OMP) in 2001 as the permanent solution to the chronic problem of delays and congestion at O’Hare.
After completing the comprehensive federal review process, the OMP broke ground on construction for Runway 9L the same day it received the FAA’s Record of Decision, on Sept. 30, 2005.
New Runway 9L will immediately reduce delays at O’Hare. The FAA estimates that delays will be reduced from today’s average of 24 minutes to 16 minutes per flight, especially in bad weather conditions, while adding an additional 52,000 flights annually.
These benefits also prompted the FAA to remove the flight caps, put in place in 2004, that reduced the number of arrivals at O’Hare during peak times.
Runway 9L will be supported by a new North Air Traffic Control Tower (NATCT). The NATCT is necessary because the west end of new Runway 9L could not be seen from the existing tower.
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At Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, owned and operated by the Port of Seattle, the new third runway is 8,500 feet long, 150 feet wide and 17 inches thick.
To pave the runway and the eight connecting taxiways, it required 130,000 cubic yards of concrete and 35,000 tons of asphalt for the runway shoulders.
The airport is located on a plateau and the land west of the airfield needed to be brought up to the same elevation as the existing airfield. To accomplish that, it took more than 16 million cubic yards of dirt and the largest mechanically stabilized earth retaining wall in the western hemisphere.
As part of the projects, more than 158,000 native plants were installed to enhance and reconstruct airport area wetlands and restore land to protect nearby creeks. Just this week, spawning Coho salmon were discovered in Miller Creek, a reconstructed creek located near the new runway.
Sea-Tac’s new third runway is designed to help decrease delays during low visibility conditions, which occurs approximately 44 percent of the year. The third runway will allow two streams of traffic to land in lower visibility conditions.
Currently, Sea-Tac’s two runways are too close to each other to allow two streams of traffic to arrive in such conditions.
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