Out of date
Watt said the airport needs a lot of new investment. The T-hangars, which cater to smaller private planes, are decades out of date and underutilized.
“The facilities are just old. They’re very difficult to maintain,” Watt said.
About $20.7 million of the new investment would pay for upgrades to hangars for general aviation, upgrades to the airport’s 53,000-square-foot passenger terminal, and a new Jetway to let passengers board larger planes. Another $6.5 million would go for personnel costs including training and benefits, and about $1.4 million would go for new maintenance, security and the master plan.
Experts interviewed by the Free Press agreed the airport could be great again, as it was decades ago, provided its gets the new investment it needs.
The upgrades foreseen in Orr’s plan do not include a runway extension or a new runway, something that some outside critics have long maintained the airport needs. The airport’s main runway, known as 15/33, is about 5,100 feet long, and some aviation experts believe the airport needs a runway of from 6,000 to 7,000 feet to accommodate the sort of jets carriers like Southwest use on their routes, such as Boeing 737s.
In November 2012, Orr noted, a consultant prepared a 10-year capital improvement program for the airport, which included several rehabilitation plans, ranging from $55 million for upgrades other than runways to a $273-million plan that included a new runway paid for in part by federal grants.
In his plan, Orr said the city would explore a possible sale or lease of the airport but would continue to subsidize and operate the airport until a viable transaction was found. As Watt and other experts said, a sale is highly unlikely because it would trigger a requirement that Detroit repay the Federal Aviation Administration for airport funds previously received, a figure Watt said could run from $25 million to $50 million.