Why move the Aspen-Pitkin County taxiway and runway further apart? So bigger planes won’t sideswipe. Whose bigger planes? Not airlines but private owners, especially of Gulfstream 650s. Does that merit a public investment of $229 million by all airport users plus $106 million by federal taxpayers? Why shouldn’t private jet owners pay, as we proposed, for what they want but the airlines don’t?
Wider separation doesn’t mean a wider runway, but the FAA wants that too, to fit a doubled-capacity Airbus that the airlines aren’t asking for and only Delta flies. It’s not certified to fly into Aspen, and the county’s lead forecaster personally thinks it never will. But the “need” flows from the county’s bogus high-growth forecast calling for bigger planes. The Airport Advisory Board never discussed and three county commissioners ignored that forecast’s well-documented fatal flaws. Ignoring major evidence that didn’t fit the desired outcome caused today’s airport dilemma.
No one has “urged the commissioners to sever ties with the FAA to the greatest extent possible.” Aspen Fly Right has consistently urged close but different cooperation with the FAA so it remains our vital safety regulator but doesn’t become our valley’s Developer-in-Chief. The FAA’s forecast of an additional 285,000 annual passengers by 2050, based on assuming no constraints on lodging capacity, roads or anything else, would do immeasurable harm to the community’s quality of life, and its discretionary grants impose major costs. Voters may balk in November.
Aspen Fly Right didn’t just “contend” but demonstrated from county data how to finance all needed airport improvements solely from committed new private-plane revenues — not from “other funds,” with no burden on public users or taxpayers, and based not on “optimistic” fuel-sales forecasts but on guaranteed minimum payments. We asked to be told of any errors. After 27 days, the county Manager reported none, but only criticized claims we hadn’t made and explicit omissions not affecting our findings.
Everyone agrees the runway must be promptly rebuilt under an approved Airport Layout Plan, existing or new, though some falsely claim we want none. A year ago, FAA regional
manager John Bauer assured the BOCC that Pitkin County could keep the existing airfield layout and aircraft wingspan limit by foregoing bigger planes and further discretionary grants — the same grants we just showed aren’t needed — but he did not threaten other penalties as claimed. You can watch him say it, twice, at aspenflyright.org/videoguide. Now a consultant insists the FAA would never approve a plan without bigger planes. Well, if Mr. Bauer didn’t mean what he said, he should say so. I think he did mean what he said, and the county should accept his offer.
The same consultant’s cost estimates show that the FAA grants at stake aren’t a half-billion dollars. They total about $18 million for the airfield beyond its extra costs, plus potentially some part of $115 million for the terminal. This bigger airport’s total net cost is similar to that of a no-grants, rightsized better airport with the new runway and terminal the community wants. Not considering this offered choice would be fiscally irresponsible and politically imprudent. The official data show it would inflict more pollution, noise, and crowding on our home from more and bigger planes for little if any economic benefit.
The Pitkin Board of County Commissioners’ process never confronts its advisors with contrary evidence. They simply assume airfield expansion without question. Should we all do the same, with no consideration of what this means for our community’s quality of life? Does anyone really believe that expanding the airfield for bigger private jets will, in any way, benefit the rest of us who live in Pitkin County or the Roaring Fork Valley?
Only Commissioner Kelly McNicholas Kury seems to understand this choice. Aspen Fly Right’s seven-step plan (aspenflyright.org/BOCCStrategy) would retain the current airfield layout with a rebuilt runway and terminal, but the county is ignoring it and refusing to consider any real alternative. We also documented that FAA rules do not require upgrading the airfield as some claim, because our current airport layout is grandfathered by the 1999 Modification of Standard, which the FAA says it wouldn’t revoke. Again, watch the video.
What Mr. Bauer told the BOCC, as you can see in our video clips, is not “breaking the law” as the consultant claimed. It is not an opinion. Neither is our simple financial math. That 1,561 other airports haven’t used their FBOs’ revenues to replace FAA grants doesn’t mean they couldn’t, but only that they had no reason to. Our airport does.
Four commissioners need to improve their grasp of these facts, consider real alternatives, and hear more voices than the advisors who’ve been quietly and tenaciously creating this mess for a decade — lately in executive sessions where the public can’t hear their claims. The moment of truth is arriving. On Nov. 5 it will be upon us.