THE ST CLAIR PLAN

      

While dealing with the city, MODOT, and the Feds over the closing of the St. Clair Airport, we concluded that there was some invisible barrier that we were running into.  At first we thought it was just incompetence and laziness on the part of public employees who were charged with the protection of airports.  We heard “There is nothing we can do” hundreds of times, from everywhere.  We explained that if St. Clair is allowed to do this, it won’t be the last, but the beginning of bad things for a lot of airports. 

Interpretation of the law is changing.  If an airport had the potential to have ten tenants in so many years, it could be included in the NPIAS.  After talking to some aviation experts that will no longer be the rule.  Not only will an airport have to have ten tenants, they all can’t be Cessna 150’s.  There appears to be a movement to abandon the small outlying airports.  Go Big or Be Gone.   This appears to be the invisible barrier we were running into.  

The FEDs have published the following.  

The airport system should be extensive, providing as many people as possible with convenient access to air transportation, typically not more than 20 miles of travel to the nearest NPIAS airport.

Airports should be operated efficiently both for aeronautical users and the government, relying primarily on user fees and placing minimal burden on the general revenues of the local, state, and federal governments.

Airports should be permanent, with assurance that they will remain open for aeronautical use over the long term.

The FEDs will take this for an example, to mean that if a replacement airport were to be built for the close of St. Clair it must be 20 miles from Sullivan, Spirit, and Washington, and that means 20, not 19.5.  This is of importance, because a lot of the airport users in this area travel over 20 miles already.   

Travel by general aviation is not for everyone.  Soon it will not be for anyone.  The ability to travel not only the State of Missouri but anywhere by aircraft will be slowly and quietly disappearing.   

In the past many compliance issues were just overlooked, in order to distribute the trillions of dollars collected from airport users.  Now they are going to be used to genocide the smaller airports.  It appears that the FEDs did not just ignore the St Clair plan to destroy an airport, but they actually seem to have endorsed it, maybe even implemented it.