- 1
- 2
- next
- | single page
David L. Blackshear, shown in 1999, the year he was appointed to lead the Maryland Aviation Administration and BWI. (Sun file photo / July 16, 2001) |
As executive director of the Maryland Aviation Administration, David L. Blackshear has overseen Baltimore-Washington International Airport's unprecedented growth over the last few years. He recently discussed the state's billion dollar plans for the airport and local fallout of the uncertain US Airways/United merger.
The state recently approved $1.8 billion for BWI improvement projects. What will that include?
A whole slew of things. It mostly deals with the terminal side of the airport. Dividing the airport into land side and air side, these are all land side improvements. With the exception of a very small project, weÂ’re not doing anything with the expansion of capacity on the air side. The signature project is an 8,000-car parking garage that will go directly on top of the Maryland Department of Transportation headquarters. This week they are completing the test piles and then we will begin in earnest the first 3,000 spaces of that garage. WeÂ’ll have those by Thanksgiving of next year. Also, weÂ’re putting in a new surface parking lot adjacent to the Sheraton Hotel. The objective is to tide us over until we can get those first 3,000 spaces of the parking garage open. The other thing visible to the public is the concourse "A" expansion. There will be a new concourse of about 12 gates for Southwest Airlines. What the public canÂ’t see as part of that $1.8 billion is major improvements to the central utility plant and several other small projects that tie all of that together. One of the big projects I didnÂ’t mention would be adding skybridges across from the existing terminal building to the main parking garage so that people will no longer have to cross the main roadways and risk their lives as they run across those six lanes of traffic.
Is this the biggest project the airport has ever undertaken?
I think so. The only other thing the airportÂ’s done of major magnitude was expand the concourse when Piedmont set up its hub here years ago. That has since been dismantled by US Airways.
This does not include plans for a new runway or terminal building?
No airside at all, no airfield capacity enhancements of any kind. The FAA is finishing up a capacity study to take a look at when we [will] need a parallel runway and the alternatives as to which way you could aim one. We hope to have that finished in the next 60 days, then weÂ’ll be looking in earnest at what we have to do about the airfield. Right now, the crisis has been on the land side, parking and roadways and gate capacity, so weÂ’re staying on the land side for the moment.
Where is that $1.8 billion coming from?
ItÂ’s all self-generated money. It comes from the federal side, it comes from both discretionary and entitlement money that passengers have paid into the federal trust fund. They pay a considerable amount of money; an 8 percent ticket tax on every airline ticket is funneled into the transportation trust fund. We get a small fraction of that back and thatÂ’s part of the money. We are authorized to collect a passenger facility charge, which until now has been $3 a head, and the federal government has authorized an increase to $4.50. WeÂ’re looking at how we might generate those funds. We donÂ’t have any approval to increase the passenger facility charge yet. Then, of course we do all of our own generation of money. The airport is not a taxpayer-supported institution. It is a self-generated business, for all practical purposes. People park here and buy hot dogs and do all those things you do at airports. All of that money is directly deposited and recycled for the development and operation of the airport. ItÂ’s basically user-paid.
The airport released a study recently on regional economic impact.
We try to redo those every now and then and every time we do we find new economic activity. [This most recent study revealed] $6.5 billion in annual revenue [created] supporting 85,000 jobs. That was an increase of 10,000 jobs from the time we did it in 1998. This airport is now the fastest growing in North America, and it has surpassed Dulles in total passengers over the last four months.
Do you expect that growth curve to continue?
Yes. The big unknown is the USAir/United merger. If thatÂ’s going to go down the tubes -- which we certainly have hoped and have done lots of legal work to encourage -- then comes the question of whatÂ’s going to happen to US Airways. ThereÂ’s been lots of speculation out there that theyÂ’re going to dry up. I donÂ’t subscribe to that. ItÂ’s anybodyÂ’s guess at the moment. USAir has a tremendous business here. Their MetroJet planes are full all the time, wherever they go. It just depends on what that company does and how they reorganize themselves. Outside of that, everybodyÂ’s growing. While we see the greatest growth with Southwest, we donÂ’t see any slouches.
What was your reaction when you heard that the merger might not go through?
ThereÂ’s more work ahead. But it certainly was a sigh of relief. You didnÂ’t have to be some genius economist to figure out what it was going to do to us. If you had an airline with a huge hub at Dulles and another huge hub in Philadelphia, the only thing between those two points is the state of Maryland, so it didnÂ’t take long to figure out who was going to be the loser. We would have lost a considerable amount of air service as proposed by United. So it was a great sigh of relief, granted that itÂ’s over. Of course, itÂ’s never over till itÂ’s over.
But those flights are still in jeopardy arenÂ’t they? Even as an independent carrier, US Airways might have to cut back at BWI.
Absolutely, thereÂ’s a lot of speculation by the analysts that because USAirÂ’s hub is so close to Philadelphia that they will cut back here at BWI and increase their operations in Philadelphia. The truth of the matter is that the USAir operations in Dulles and National are relatively poor compared to what their future growth could be. I think they will refocus on what their strong points are here as opposed to just picking up and flying away.
What would a loss or severe cutback by US Airways mean to BWI passengers?
Under the terms of the merger, they proposed to virtually eliminate MetroJet in its entirety. That would cost us 30 flights a day and a couple million passengers a year.
The state recently approved $1.8 billion for BWI improvement projects. What will that include?
A whole slew of things. It mostly deals with the terminal side of the airport. Dividing the airport into land side and air side, these are all land side improvements. With the exception of a very small project, weÂ’re not doing anything with the expansion of capacity on the air side. The signature project is an 8,000-car parking garage that will go directly on top of the Maryland Department of Transportation headquarters. This week they are completing the test piles and then we will begin in earnest the first 3,000 spaces of that garage. WeÂ’ll have those by Thanksgiving of next year. Also, weÂ’re putting in a new surface parking lot adjacent to the Sheraton Hotel. The objective is to tide us over until we can get those first 3,000 spaces of the parking garage open. The other thing visible to the public is the concourse "A" expansion. There will be a new concourse of about 12 gates for Southwest Airlines. What the public canÂ’t see as part of that $1.8 billion is major improvements to the central utility plant and several other small projects that tie all of that together. One of the big projects I didnÂ’t mention would be adding skybridges across from the existing terminal building to the main parking garage so that people will no longer have to cross the main roadways and risk their lives as they run across those six lanes of traffic.
Is this the biggest project the airport has ever undertaken?
I think so. The only other thing the airportÂ’s done of major magnitude was expand the concourse when Piedmont set up its hub here years ago. That has since been dismantled by US Airways.
This does not include plans for a new runway or terminal building?
No airside at all, no airfield capacity enhancements of any kind. The FAA is finishing up a capacity study to take a look at when we [will] need a parallel runway and the alternatives as to which way you could aim one. We hope to have that finished in the next 60 days, then weÂ’ll be looking in earnest at what we have to do about the airfield. Right now, the crisis has been on the land side, parking and roadways and gate capacity, so weÂ’re staying on the land side for the moment.
Where is that $1.8 billion coming from?
ItÂ’s all self-generated money. It comes from the federal side, it comes from both discretionary and entitlement money that passengers have paid into the federal trust fund. They pay a considerable amount of money; an 8 percent ticket tax on every airline ticket is funneled into the transportation trust fund. We get a small fraction of that back and thatÂ’s part of the money. We are authorized to collect a passenger facility charge, which until now has been $3 a head, and the federal government has authorized an increase to $4.50. WeÂ’re looking at how we might generate those funds. We donÂ’t have any approval to increase the passenger facility charge yet. Then, of course we do all of our own generation of money. The airport is not a taxpayer-supported institution. It is a self-generated business, for all practical purposes. People park here and buy hot dogs and do all those things you do at airports. All of that money is directly deposited and recycled for the development and operation of the airport. ItÂ’s basically user-paid.
The airport released a study recently on regional economic impact.
We try to redo those every now and then and every time we do we find new economic activity. [This most recent study revealed] $6.5 billion in annual revenue [created] supporting 85,000 jobs. That was an increase of 10,000 jobs from the time we did it in 1998. This airport is now the fastest growing in North America, and it has surpassed Dulles in total passengers over the last four months.
Do you expect that growth curve to continue?
Yes. The big unknown is the USAir/United merger. If thatÂ’s going to go down the tubes -- which we certainly have hoped and have done lots of legal work to encourage -- then comes the question of whatÂ’s going to happen to US Airways. ThereÂ’s been lots of speculation out there that theyÂ’re going to dry up. I donÂ’t subscribe to that. ItÂ’s anybodyÂ’s guess at the moment. USAir has a tremendous business here. Their MetroJet planes are full all the time, wherever they go. It just depends on what that company does and how they reorganize themselves. Outside of that, everybodyÂ’s growing. While we see the greatest growth with Southwest, we donÂ’t see any slouches.
What was your reaction when you heard that the merger might not go through?
ThereÂ’s more work ahead. But it certainly was a sigh of relief. You didnÂ’t have to be some genius economist to figure out what it was going to do to us. If you had an airline with a huge hub at Dulles and another huge hub in Philadelphia, the only thing between those two points is the state of Maryland, so it didnÂ’t take long to figure out who was going to be the loser. We would have lost a considerable amount of air service as proposed by United. So it was a great sigh of relief, granted that itÂ’s over. Of course, itÂ’s never over till itÂ’s over.
But those flights are still in jeopardy arenÂ’t they? Even as an independent carrier, US Airways might have to cut back at BWI.
Absolutely, thereÂ’s a lot of speculation by the analysts that because USAirÂ’s hub is so close to Philadelphia that they will cut back here at BWI and increase their operations in Philadelphia. The truth of the matter is that the USAir operations in Dulles and National are relatively poor compared to what their future growth could be. I think they will refocus on what their strong points are here as opposed to just picking up and flying away.
What would a loss or severe cutback by US Airways mean to BWI passengers?
Under the terms of the merger, they proposed to virtually eliminate MetroJet in its entirety. That would cost us 30 flights a day and a couple million passengers a year.
