More good news for HIA!!! Man, things just keep getting better and better around here:
FAA chief to deliver funds for HIA work
Thursday, May 27, 2004
BY ELLEN LYON
Of The Patriot-News
Marion C. Blakey, administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, will tour the terminal under construction at Harrisburg International Airport today, bringing with her some federal money for the airport and state.
Blakey will present a check for $11.2 million to the Susquehanna Area Regional Airport Authority, which owns and operates HIA in Lower Swatara Twp. and Capital City Airport in Fairview Twp.
Most of that money -- $10.3 million -- is earmarked for HIA's $222 million expansion project, according to FAA spokesman Jim Peters.
The check is one installment in the $108 million in federal funding for the project, which includes a new, larger terminal and apron, a parking garage, a navigational system and Amtrak train station.
HIA officials have billed the new terminal as the first in the country designed and built with post-Sept. 11 security considerations in mind.
Capital City Airport will get $930,700, Peters added.
Blakey also will present state transportation officials with $11.7 million, representing Pennsylvania's federal aviation block grant for 2004, Peters said.
HIA officials reported to the authority board yesterday that passenger traffic at the airport was up 14.8 percent last month when compared to April 2003. So far this year, traffic is up 6.5 percent when compared to the same period in 2003.
"The 117,839 passengers that chose HIA last month made April 2004 the busiest April since 1999 and the fourth-busiest April ever," Aviation Director Fred Testa said.
He attributed the increase to more flights into and out of the airport.
The HIA numbers compare to a national increase in passenger traffic of 10.2 percent in April and a 4.6 percent increase so far this year, according to airport officials.
The board awarded a contract for the sole right to pick up taxi passengers at HIA to American Taxi of Harrisburg.
"We've had too many instances over the past two years when arriving passengers have had to wait long periods of time for taxicab service from the airport," Testa said. "A taxicab driver from any company is still allowed to drop off passengers at the airport. However, only drivers from American Taxi will be allowed to pick up passengers and transport them from the airport."
Last year, an estimated 21,000 cab trips were made from the airport, with an average fare of $24, HIA spokesman Scott Miller said. Under American Taxi's contract, the same amount of traffic at that average fare would bring the airport $35,000 in revenue, he said.
There were two other bidders for the taxi contract, but neither met all the requirements listed in the request for proposals, Miller said.
The board announced that six car-rental companies -- Hertz, Avis, Budget, National, Enterprise and Thrifty -- will have contracts to operate concessions in the new parking garage, which is scheduled to open in late summer.
Dollar and Alamo rental cars also will be available, but their pickup and drop-off locations will not be on airport property.
The authority also awarded a contract not to exceed $353,500 to Stewart Stevenson Power Inc. of Houston for a runway snow broom vehicle.
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