Kissimmee airport spared from FAA cuts
By Ken Jackson
Staff Writer
Kissimmee Gateway Airports air traffic control tower will continue to operate as it has for the last 15 years, as announced Friday by the Federal Aviation Authority.
"It is a tremendous relief to know that we will be able to safely operate and continue to bring economic benefit to our community, he said.
As a part of the federal governments sequestration in order to trim the budget, the FAA announced that 149 contract towers will lose their federal funding beginning April 7. The authority determined that Kissimmee Gateway and 23 other towers nationally, previously listed for closure, will remain open because of national security concerns.
Opa-Locka Executive Airport in Miami and Craig Municipal Airport and Cecil Field in Jacksonville are the other Florida airports to be spared, but locally Lakeland Linder Regional Airport and Space Coast Regional in Titusville remained on the chopping block. In total, 149 of the 251 contract towers across the country will close if they cant find private funding, a nearly 60 percent reduction in the federally-funded contract tower program.
The FAA decision does not mean the end of this fight for Kissimmees airport. The funding program has been renewed in the past on a year-to-year basis, and it is up for renewal again when the next federal fiscal budget year ends on Sept. 30.
Weve lived year-to-year with this program anyway, but theres never been this level of turmoil surrounding it, Lloyd said, noting that Kissimmee airport representatives will be working with Congress and aviation lobbyists to ensure that the tower funding is part of the 2013-14 fiscal calendar.
Had Gateway Airport remained on the funding chopping block, Lloyd said that his staff had put together a Plan B to at least keep the tower, which is contracted by Robinson Aviation to hire and pay its controllers, up and running in a limited capacity.
We had worked out a private funding option involves fees charged to our business partners for services, he said. But the most we could have raised is $350,000, and we receive around $900,000 annually from the aviation program. We could have stayed open, but for just the 12 busiest hours of the day, we would have had to lose about three people and reduce the hours of who was left.
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Kissimmee airport spared from FAA cuts