Albany-Dougherty Aviation commission welcomes Gloria Gaines, moves forward on improvement plans

ALBANY — In addition to welcoming its newest board member, former county commissioner Gloria Gaines, the Albany-Dougherty Aviation Committee spent the bulk of its regular meeting Monday night discussing future improvements to the Southwest Georgia Regional Airport.

After welcoming Gaines and hearing a brief financial update from airport director Yvette Ahele, the commission voted unanimously to have Holt Consulting Company begin work on an airport pavement strength study, a wildlife hazard management plan, and plans outlining the scope and cost surrounding the commission’s long term vision to improve the airport’s General Aviation Terminal.

The pavement study will be completed first and will serve a dual purpose for the airport. First, it will identify any areas on the runways or taxiways that need to be repaired. It will also then assign a Pavement Classification Number (PCN) to each, which will allow for better communication with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and other pilots.

“We have a cracked seal project on Runway 422 to be done next,” said Ahele. “I have a feeling it might be more than just a cracked seal. It might be a rehabilitation of the pavement. This will show the FAA what needs to happen there.”

The study will also then assign a Pavement Classification Number (PCN) to each runway and taxiway, which will allow for better communication with the Federal Aviation Association and other pilots.

“All commercial airports need to have a PCN study done and what this one will also do is help us look at the weight-bearing capacity of 422 as well as all of our other pavements and give us a PCN number.PCN numbers will be easy indicators for those folks in the airport business but also for pilots to know whether their aircraft will be able to be handled on a runway or taxiway. It’s also an FAA requirement.”

In addition to the pavement study, the board engaged Holt to help create a wildlife management plan for the airport as a follow up to an 18-month wildlife assessment the airport recently had done that would lay out how the airport is going to deal with animal-related issues moving forward.

Ahele said the assessment identified that the airport doesn’t have as many issues with things like deer and coyotes, as it has had in the past, but it does have a considerable number of different bird species, such as geese, that land at and try to roost at the airport.

“This is the next stage of it,” said Ahele. “It’s a much faster study than what we’ve been dealing with, it’s only going to last about 60 calendar days and this is just to develop a plan for us.”

In it’s final action the board voted to again engage Holt to develop plans outlining the scope and potential cost of proposed future improvements to the General Aviation Terminal at the airport.

The commission has been discussing long term plans for that project and Ahele informed members that in order to be prepared to present ideas to the public, the FAA, the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) and others, they needed a comprehensive plan.

“The programming on the general aviation terminal area development that we talked about in last month’s meeting,” Ahele said. “We’re going to have to make presentations to the public, to GDOT, to FAA, to anybody who’ll listen. If you’re going to think about how much something will cost we need to have studies such (on things) such as the utility plan, the phasing plan, the grading and drainage plan, we need to have some sort of idea about how much all of those items will cost and how we’re going to phase it and this is the cost to put that package together.”

Ahele estimated the development plan would be finished some time over the summer which would give the commission ample time to present it in hopes of getting FAA and GDOT support, as well as getting it on an upcoming 2017 SPLOST ballot.

The next scheduled meeting of the Albany-Dougherty Aviation Committee is Jan. 26.