A story in the Salt Lake City Tribune reports that officials at Salt Lake City International Airport are exploring whether it is time to start pushing small general aviation aircraft away because they tend to slow busy airline operations and limit the ability to attract more commercial flights.
“It may not be reasonable to continue to provide service for small general aviation aircraft” at the main airport, Steve Domino, a consultant with RS&H, told the Airport Advisory Board on Wednesday, according to the story by Lee Davidson.
“While general aviation aircraft are always allowed here, we think the policy should be directed to try to encourage those small [aircraft] operations at other general aviation airports,” he said.
Alternate destinations would include the two other airports owned by Salt Lake City: South Valley Regional Airport in West Jordan and Tooele Valley Airport.
Read the full story here.
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I think that KSLC should not get any GA fuel tax or assistance from the FAA for airport improvements, let the city pay for it. When I fly commercial, I’ll book around KSLC.
Seems like there is not a lot of good alternatives in Utah. This from the AOPA:
“Heber City Municipal Airport in Utah, the most complained-about location in AOPA’s inquiry into airport access and unreasonable FBO fees, recently announced the city will issue a request for proposals for a second FBO.”
Isn’t it illegal to discriminate against GA is the use of a facility built primarily with our Federal tax dollars? I certainly hope so.
I doubt that anybody files to KSLC just for the hell of it. I have flown there twice. Once was in order to get to the avionics shop to have a radio repair done so that I could continue a transcontinental trip. The second time a friend left my airplane there as I was flying in commercially from Florida the next day to pick up my airplane and continue on to Alaska.
In the first instance, a GA ban would have deprived me of my repair and deprived the avionics shop of a customer. In the second instance, it would have required me to get surface transportation from KSLC to the GA airport and likely an unnecessary overnight stay.
Do my tax dollars and those of the avionics shop not entitle us to equal treatment?
Hmmmm, let me see. I think it is time for to fly over there with one of the blimps and do an ILS. 😉
That will block out that runway for about 30 minutes, assuming a calm wind day and I can maintain my 25MPH speed from intercept of GS to the threshold. Ah, but then, it will take me about 10 minutes just to clear the runway.
And I won’t land, won’t need fuel….
Ok, now that you all have had a good laugh. Seriously, why do GA aircraft fly into that airport? I fly a hi-perf complex aircraft, and I do not go into Class C or higher airports without a really good reason. I just do not need the headache of wingtip vortices.
But if I need to drop someone there for them to catch an airline flight (notice I didn’t say commercial, ’cause I’m flying them for pay, making my flight commercial), and the biggest airplane I have is a Lance, or a Seneca, and we all know those are GA (could be I am 135….), I’ve got a good and valid reason to be there.
And if that towered airport is the only one within 25NM of my airport and my students have to have night tower operations….
I think the alphabet soup organizations should start making noise now before we have another airport effectively shutdown…. OK, it is still an airport, but GA is being pushed out of it.
I had my 1949 Ryan Navion hangared at KSLC for about a year, so I think I can answer your question : space, and convenience. When I lived nearer to downtown, KSLC was significantly closer to me. Going to U42 (South Valley Regional) added a 30 minute drive. Tooele Airport would be even further. This isn’t like Ohio where there are airports littered about like paint drops on a Jackson Pollock painting.
Secondly, there’s no room at the other airports. I was able to get a shade hangar at KSLC immediately, but had to wait about a year before my name came up on the list for U42. You should see the wait list for a fully enclosed hangar at U42. There are NO hangars at Tooele at all. The suggestion that GA pilots move elsewhere is deaf to the point of disregard to the fact that there’s nowhere to go.
There are already several good reasons to get out of KSLC. I moved out because 100LL is about $1/gallon cheaper at U42, and I could wash my airplane (which, at KSLC, I would have to pay one of the FBOs $150 to do). It’s far more convenient to operate out of one of the untowered airports underneath the Class B airspace; no requesting clearance, just hop in and go. Plus there’s a healthy pilot/owner community at U42, which is mostly non-existant at KSLC.