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Things are popping at Jacksonville airports
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Photo/Leo King
JAA’s Michael Stewart fields questions from around the table at JAA’s headquarter on Media Day. At left is Florida Times-Union business writer Abel Harding, and at right WOKV’s Jeremy Ratliff and WJCT’s Steve Brown. Other reporters were out of view at the table.
It is evident things are popping at two of Jacksonville’s four airports.
In interviews yesterday at Jacksonville Aviation Authority headquarters, Michael Stewart and other officials explained to local reporters what’s going on. It was JAA’s Media Day, and a dozen reporters were on hand to listen, learn, and write their reports. One TV station crew came along, too.
Stewart is the director of external affairs. Between him and Debbie Jones, JAA’s Community Relations Administrator, and development and marketing manager Barbara Halverstadt and a host of other people, they come up with new ideas to make the airports hum.
Topics ranged from what happens if there is ever a major accident on the field to what happens to luggage as it goes through the security checks.
Steward explained, “JAA Split from the Port Authority back in 2001. We’re run by a seven-person board. Four of those board members are appointed by the governor and three by the mayor,” John Peyton.
Gubernatorial appointee Deborah Pass-Durham is JAA’s new chair. She was elected last month, and was formerly JAA’s treasurer.
“Two board members are up for reappointment,” Stewart said, ““We’re waiting for the governor to do his thing. Ron Weaver is immediate past chairman. The other is Mary Burnett. She just completed her second full term. Our charter allows for our board members to serve two complete four-year terms, consecutive terms, and then they are term-limited out, just like other elected officers in the state.”
Turning to the airports themselves, Stewart noted there are four airports in the city-owned system – Jacksonville International Airport (JAX), Craig Field (CRG), Herlong Airport (HRG), and Cecil Field (VQQ) – a Naval air station until 1999. Add the Navy airports NAS Jacksonville (NIP) and Naval Station Mayport (NRB), and we have a vibrant aircraft community.
Every airport in the world has a three-character identifier associated with it. Most are all letters, but some have numerals as well.
You’ll see “JIA” in many stories dealing with the main Jacksonville airport, JAX, but that refers solely to the terminal.
Stewart said the airport moved from Imeson Field about 40 years ago.
Jacksonville Municipal Airport, also known as Jacksonville Army Air Force Field and Imeson Field was “Jacksonville’s original municipal airport, and opened in 1927 on the site of a 175-acre prison farm located north of downtown Jacksonville. It had a 2,100-foot cinder-and-shell runway, a 2,500-foot grass runway, an administration building and a hangar. In its first year, the new airport was visited by Charles Lindbergh,” wrote Paul Freeman on his website, Abandoned and Little-Known Airports.
Little of that airfield exists today.
Steward said, of the modern JAX, “We just completed a $300-plus million in renovations over three phases earlier this year when we replaced concourses A and C. We demolished concourse B because of the economy and downturn in the number of travelers. The replacement of concourse B is imminent… in the near future. Three to five years? We’re not really sure. That will be determined how the traffic starts to pick up again. Hopefully, we’ll start to see that next year.”
He said that in “the last two months we have hit bottom. We’ve not continued to have decreases in our number of travelers, but we are still below our travel level of 2007, which was the highest travel time in the history of aviation.”
He added, “We’re down about 7 percent in our percentage of travelers. Last year we had a little over 6 million. In 2007 we had 6.3 million passengers, so if we continue on our trend it may be somewhere in the area on 5.8 million, maybe 5.9 million. We won’t have October’s numbers until sometime this week. They’re starting to uptick a little bit.”
He credited Barbara Halverstadt with “an extremely successful” gathering of airline executives at JAX.
“We had an ‘Aviation Summit’ and it was the first time we did it. We had six airlines that were in town. We wanted to show them the area, what we have to offer here. Now is a very difficult time to try and grow your air service. Barbara’s and her staff’s intent was to expose them to such that when you start to grow again, they’ll keep us on the radar screen.”
Thursday: space, baggage and more. Wednesday is Veterans Day.
Useful websites:
Jacksonville Aviation Authority: www.jaa.aero/General/Default.aspx
Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields: www.airfields-freeman.com/FL/Airfields_FL_Jax_NE.htm
Last updated Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 3:50 p.m. ET
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