COU runway repairs to be paid using transportation sales tax

The City of Columbia has the money to pay repair the intersection of two runways, where problems caused air traffic to be halted in April.

The Columbia Regional Airport closed Runway 13-31 in April after passengers and pilots reported feeling a bump when going over the crown where it intersects Runway 2-20, which had already been shut down for repairs.

City spokesman Steve Sapp said Wednesday the city will use funds from the voter-approved transportation sales tax to absorb the cost of the repairs that the Federal Aviation Administration will not cover.

The city expected the FAA to pay for around 90 percent of the repairs, but the federal agency agreed to pay around 80 percent, Sapp said.

“We have adequate funding. We don’t go into negative balances in our budgets. So we have adequate funding this year to cover that amount through the transportation sales tax. So we’ll be able to absorb that this year,” he said.

Sapp said there were some emergency contingencies in the project that the FAA would not cover.

“For example we had to start up an asphalt plant much earlier than what they normally start up,” he said.

“Some of those things are emergency contingencies that simply aren’t covered by FAA grant processes,” he said.

Despite the runway closure, the airport still saw an increase in the number of people flying out of COU. Sapp said the airport set a record for the number of people boarding planes but had a slight reduction in people getting off planes the month after the shutdown, which lasted about a week.

Overall flights were up 2.3 percent in May from May 2018.

United Airlines saw an increase of 18.9 percent from May 2018 to May 2019, while American Airlines saw a decrease of 4.8 percent.

It is not clear if the decrease was the result of the runway closure.

Sapp said using the funds from the transportation sales tax will not slow down any of the other projects the airport is working on, such as adding parking, extending Runway 2-20 by 900 feet and building a new terminal.

In fact, it has already taken steps to move forward with several of the projects. Sapp said the city got FAA approval of its “supplemental terminal area master plan” on Monday.

“This is a document that we submitted to the FAA that gives us permission, approval if you will, to move forward with the terminal in the location next to the existing terminal,” Sapp said.

The airport is also adding 225 parking spaces, which is currently at around 90 percent capacity.

“We are adding this summer 225 spaces on the west side of Airport Drive,” he said.

Sapp said the new parking will be in anticipation of the new terminal. The airport’s contractor is using the concrete that was removed during the repairs to the runway, and grinding it back to gravel to be used when adding parking.

Sapp said the airport’s 2009 master plan projects should all be completed by 2020 or 2021.

“Nothing right now is affecting any of those projects. We’re a go for the terminal, we’re a go for this runway extension, so we’re very excited because there’s a lot of things happening at COU right now,” Sapp said.