Mid-America Airport

[CrazyBob]

Hi all,

I was just thumbing through the pages of the Airport/Facility Directory looking up airport diagrams for my next cross country, when I came across an airport of interest. I remember a few years ago watching a program on Mid-America airport outside St Louis documenting the brand new terminal and facilities. It turns out they expected this airport in the middle of nowhere to become a bustling regional hub. About 6 years later, a lone charter airline operates there with minimal service, and they are actually considering building new cargo facilities! Anyone else think this airport was doomed from the beginning and a waste of taxpayer dollars, or does it still hold some potential to make the $213+ million back?

[ChrisTrott]

If you're talking about KBLV, which is the only "Mid-America" I know about, there's definitely a lot of potential. You need to remember that the airport was already built by the US Government as Scott AFB. Now that the AMC has removed most of it's flight ops from BLV to other stations, it's mainly using only one half of the base, so the other half (one runway and ramps) was made available to civilian use. They built the passenger terminal hoping to move some of the traffic out of STL and some other regional airports, but the merger of TWA and AAL and Sept. 11th turned a good idea into a poorly timed one. However there is a lot of promise as a cargo facility as there is a push around the country to move cargo operations to remote facilities because of the nature of cargo operations - late night. Because of this, airports built near populated areas have problems being major cargo airports due to noise restrictions at night and neighbor complaints. Since most Air Force Bases and Navy Air Fields are built away from major populated areas, this isn't as much of a problem, thus the major Cargo Carriers (UPS, FedEx and DHL/ABX) have been petitioning Congress to pass a bill that would allow most Air Bases that are currently "underutilized" to be turned into joint-use airports (like Charleston ABF/Int'l is) with the military on one side of the field and civilian operations on the other. This is especially useful at fields like Altus AFB, Scott AFB, and other AMC bases that have very long runways and are heavily stressed to be able to handle the C-5 and C-141.

We'll see, but I always thought the airport had a better chance as a cargo hub than a passenger destination.

[metro752]

And now with the South Suburban Airport in Peotone/Will County, IL good luck with Scott AFB/Mid-America growing

http://www.fsuniverse.com/meyer/abov.../meyer_sig.jpg

[CrazyBob]

Good points about the cargo side of things, although it still seems hasty to build a brand new passenger terminal without assurance of traffic.