FAA to Keep Contract Towers Open

[gbrasch]

Heard just now, Federal contract towers to stay open through September 30th, 2013.

[Mike M]

What a surprise. Happens to coincide with the end of the fiscal year, so the money was already budgeted and there would be breach of contract suits if gummint canceled now. Or not. I am not a lawyer. Just a skeptic.

[tonycondon]

part of the deal congress made to stop ATC delays allowed the FAA to rob from the airport improvement fund to keep sleepy unnecessary towers open too. AOPA celebrated the move.

[miemsed]

I think this is good news. Now perhaps they can look at closing individual towers that are truly not needed by actually looking at statistics and only closing a tower if it truly is no longer needed based on actual use.

[tonycondon]

i applaud your optimism.

[JHawkins]

I'm conflicted on the tower closures, mostly due to local bias. Here at KFMN we have an absolutely useless contract tower that's paid for mostly with municipal funds. On one hand, being one of the people that gets the most "use" out of the ATC, I'm usually all for any expansion and development in aviation, but feel much differently about tower closures then is the current AOPA standpoint.

I'm all for closing many little used towers. We need a leaner government presence in general aviation. My biggest fear is a slow choking of the relative freedom of the U.S. airspace system. Less taxpayer dollars spent on aviation is not always bad. i.e.: it keeps GA out of the tax spotlight. I'm happy to have an arguably less safe airport environment if it means that future generations will be able to enjoy obtainable general aviation. I don't want the US to become Europe, or most of the developed world where flying is simply out of reach of the lower middle class.

[miemsed]

To clarify, I am in favor of keeping the towers and only closing one if it can be proven it is no longer needed due to a decrease of traffic at an airport to where it is no longer justified.

[cub builder]

I'm conflicted on the tower closures, mostly due to local bias. Here at KFMN we have an absolutely useless contract tower that's paid for mostly with municipal funds.

That was my case in point that this was nothing more than political haymaking. KFMN is about as useless as any tower I have seen, but wasn't on the list. KSAF was slated for closure despite being a busy airport with wide ranging traffic mix of regional jets, turboprops, private jets, single and multi-piston engine aircraft, warbirds, and homebuilts. Visiting KSAF this weekend, while waiting in line to take off, the queue was a scheduled airline RJ, a citation jet, a Cherokee 180, a Gulfstream Jet, and 2 home builts. That's about as diverse of a traffic mix as you'll find and is a typical day at SAF.

Personally, I hope the transfer of funds from the AIP funding makes them take a much closer look at how AIP funding is done. IMHO, it is a much abused program. Since the local municipality wants to use AIP funding to buy me out of my hangars and tear them down, I'm good with not having AIP funding available for them to abuse.

-Cubbuilder