The Ashville (North Carolina) Regional Airport Authority will demolish general aviation hangars at the airport (KAVL) to make more room for commercial aviation. Airport Authority spokesperson Tina Kinsey told local news outlet AVL Watchdog, “Yes, we are taking back leased aeronautical land close to the airport terminal from Signature [Aviation], the Fixed Base Operator (FBO) at AVL."
This story is being repeated everywhere. As one of my GA colleagues who builds and operates hangars at reliever airports said, “Pretty soon there will be no reliever airports and we’ll all fly into the Class B main airports since they’ll all be overpriced and the congestion screams will be loud and long as a 90 kt airplanes fly in trail with 135 kt airbuses.”
The only GA airports we will see will be those we build ourselves.
Not many, for sure, but one is planned here near Savannah, GA, as Gulfstream has taken over much of the GA land for large hangars at KSAV. Wright Army Airfield/Midcoast Regional (KLHW), 30 minutes away, also plans to expand with more hangars and ramp space. They added 12 T-hangars a couple years ago that were immediately leased. It takes good airport management to get things done as the county is not interested in dealing with it.
I agree that GA is dying and my fear is that there is nothing we can do about it. I’m approaching 70 and I’ll probably be able to continue to fly for as long as I can stay healthy and afford it (two unknown factors at this point), but I doubt that my children or almost certainly my grandchildren will have the same privileges I had.
GA is still viewed mainly as a lifestyle of the rich by the general population… at least where I live. My flying students have dwindled to the point where I mostly give flight reviews, a few discovery flights, and some transition training. I currently have no primary students. The reason(s)? Mostly it’s the time and money expense.
Quadcopters? No thank you. At least in a rotorcraft if you lose an engine you have a fighting chance through autorotation. A quadcopter has 4x the possibility of an in-flight rotor failure. Then what? It’s a nice idea, but I’m not buying it… and I’m guessing there was some sarcasm in the above post.
Agreed, Tina Kinsey and airport authority must have a short memory span. Demolishing hangars will have ‘detrimental effects’ on genl aviation activity. Next natural disaster like Helene, they may regret decision to snub/reduce genl aviation … in western NC.
I was involved with the post Helene relief effort. For the most part, GA was not allowed into AVL and was pushed out to the smaller airports, away from AVL.
In my defense, it was only “Ashville” for about an hour until I caught my slip and fixed it. You must have jumped on in the meantime, so thanks for the catch.
[While the original article has “Asheville” spelled correctly now, in the “companion discussion topic” (to which further comments are referred) it is still misspelled in both the head and text.]
But who cares? I’ve been based 170nm away for the last 30 years and have never landed at AVL. They have always been known as one of the most GA-unfriendly airports in the state (and that includes CLT). Fuel and fees are the primary reasons, but Signature FBOs are at many other airports in NC. None of them have the GA-unfriendly rep that AVL does, so one must assume it’s something in the culture (Authority?) there. If I had an engine-out near there, there’s a nice, straight, Interstate that runs right along-side it.
This is not surprising to anyone who knows the region. Asheville is the most popular fly in location for mountain home vacation tourism. And more so to the wealthy buying up property in western NC and building mountain home retreats. Follow the money as always.
I have a friend who is professional photographer in a nearby town and he’s constantly busy with the owners wanting his photo business for advertisement as rentals. It reminds me of Aspen actually.
We used to have many more GA airports, but as the urban area expanded into the suburbs and housing expanded around it all, the NIMBYs drove them out of existence.
Government airports are for IFR aircraft. Time that the Legacy GA Pilot figures that out. The FAA does’t grant money to GA airports to support Cherokees and Skyhawks infrastructure. The FAA pay for things like heavy aircraft runways/taxiways and IFR Approaches.
Airparks and private runways are for General Aviation. +40 years ago the Aviation community saw this coming and when it happens everyone seems surprised… Really?
@KlausM With respect, I beg to differ. I use a Skylane for business and fly IFR frequently as do many of my colleagues up to 300 hours a year. I fly VFR when I can on 600 nm legs. Each time I load fuel I am paying for those airports and each time I send my quarterlies into the government a part of that money goes to maintain those airports.
Take a very close look at and read FAA AC 150/5190-6 which describes the limitations on exclusive rights as you are suggesting. Especially look at §1.1 of the AC, Obligations against granting exclusive rights.
Sometimes, I fly into air carrier airports and sometimes I fly into remote rural (no fuel or services) airports. The FAA pays for nothing. Taxpayers pay for everything and taxpayers benefit for what they pay for, or they should not be paying for it. 40+ years ago, there was a private airpark in the DFW area way on the outskirts. As Dallas grew around it, they were forced out. They relocated further out and continuously bought land surrounding over the past 30 years so now they are surrounded by horse farms and open space which will not be for sale.
The airports are no more exclusive to IFR traffic than the interstates are exclusive to heavy truck transport traffic.
When I stated that the FAA “Grants Money” to airports I meant that the FAA takes all that money you have paid in taxes and allocates it for airport improvements. Those airport improvements are not taking anything away from the public’s use of the airports. The regulations protect everyone’s right to use government financed airports. It’s just that the Grant Money is rarely if ever used to improve taxiways to hangars and light aircraft GA conveniences.
FAA funded airports are more likely to allow the removal of many 45 foot door size hangars and ramp tie-down space to allow corporate and commercial builds. If the airport you store your aircraft does not have runway/taxiways that facilitate jet size aircraft it will see very little of the FAA Grant Money.
