Going Home

Kevin, do a little more homework. Airports are an important part of the community. Perhaps you should spend more time at the airport. The hangars are actually rented for revenue. The city gets paid rent for the fixed base operators and they get a piece of the fuel sales.

Then there are the jobs that the airport creates. City jobs in security, maintenance, people to plow the snow, etc. Who all pay taxes to the city (hint: more revenue).

The automotives and their suppliers have depended on airports to move critical spares and parts that keep plants running. Gee more jobs positively impacted by aviation.

More importantly, despite a lot of populist BS about corporate aircraft, they are huge contributors to the economy, save businesses billions of dollars in lost efficiency. They aren't just for flying thugs like Kwami around. Businesses use them for moving their executives, sales people, engineers.

Guess where they land and park? Sure you could close the airport and send all that money to Oakland County. Where the evil Brooks Patterson has expanded to THREE county owned airports. Hmmmm.... I wonder why that cheap guy would keep three airports open?

Check out these sites:

http://www.noplanenogain.org/

http://www.noplanenogain.org/index.php?m=51&s=340&id=63

When you think about it, it turns out its not just a big field is it?

"if the FAA gave the city money to acquire the land that the airport was built on, then the city is liable for funds provided by the FAA indefinitely." Was that contract carved in slate how many years ago? Or maybe signed when a quill was the preferred writing utensil. THAT'S JUST ABSURD - utterly and obviously senseless, illogical. What about a loophole.....does it say that the property has to remain an airport? If windmills were built in place they'd still be usuing the airspace and ports would be needed for the mills,right? I know, that was a really lame stretch but nothing is indefinate anymore...look at GM and Chrysler and Ford. People can be SO stupid. Pardon my bluntness.

Mr. suburbguy,

Thank you for your comment. I'd like to set the record straight based on research Kevin, Michael and I have been doing over the past two years.

While this industry web site might be accurate in terms of most airports, it isn't accurate about this one.

We've seen the city's budget for the airport, and it breaks even at best, and that usually only happens because of how the city does the accounting.

In terms of jobs and revenue, what you say is potentially true about airports, but in this case, City Airport isn't making any money because it has very low traffic. In the last city budget I saw, there were only 8 employees of the airport, the operating revenue for the airport only met its expenses because of money from the city's general fund, and from what I understand, while there is still some shipping in and out of that airport, much of it and the airport's private air business has already moved to other nearby small airports. This airport isn't the engine of profit that the web site you reference describes.

As for the airport being an important part of the community, I think it would serve you well to go to the community and talk to local businesses and residents about City Airport. Most won't tell you they hate it, but they will tell you that the closure of Six Mile Road that the airport championed for an expansion has an ongoing negative impact on their life, and that they are tired of the city stopping development in the area because they are banking land for an future expansion that is so expensive it has little chance of happening.

People on the west side of the airport live among stripped, abandoned houses the city has bought for an incomplete safety buffer. The most recent round of acquisitions has lasted 20 years and is still only a little over half complete, and the land the city owns has been consistently unmaintained, adding to the blight in the area.

This airport might have the potential to make money, but I bet even the National Business Aviation Association would hesitate to say that this airport is worth the damage it has done to the community around it.

Which isn't to say it should close, necessarily, but at the least, the city should make a plan for it that takes advantage of having a runway but doesn't hold the whole surrounding area hostage and keep making life progressively more grim for those who live around it.

Jonathan Morgan