ND’s oil patch airports bombarded with traffic
September 28, 2012 at 7:54 am in Grand Forks Herald
Small western North Dakota airfields that were built decades ago increasingly are being used by business jets and cargo planes in support of the booming oil industry. Continue Reading
To make these needed improvements is a no brainer. Expecting someone other than the state of ND and the FAA to pay for them is beyond the pale.
If you want the economy to continue to boom, you have to give it the raw nutrients it needs to survive. In this case it is transportation infrastructure.
It will only get worse.
Or we can do nothing and hope that instead of building the new office building in ND, the oil company builds it in SD or Montana because they can ferry in their executives from TX or back east without all the hassle.
Safford, AZ exists for two reasons: a huge copper mine and cotton. It has one of the nicest airports you have ever seen for a city of 15,000 people. Way out of proportion for what it needs.
Why? The mine owner likes to visit his property. To do that he needs an airport capable of handling his citation jet. In addition, the forrest service uses it for firefighting in the summer.
Even though it costs the city of Safford several million dollars a year to run, most is recouped with FAA money and tax revenue from avgas sales.
The mayor said even if they lost money on it every year they would still have it because the risk of losing the mine is much more detrimental to the local economy than the upkeep of the airport.
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