Audio MSP opens new runway as nation's air system edges toward gridlock (story audio) Photos The new 8,000-foot runway MAC chairwoman Vicki Tigwell MSP is the country's eighth busiest airport View full slideshow (4 images) Resources Metropolitan Airports Commission projections FAA airport runway expansion Advocacy group on runways Tools E-mail this page Print this page Sponsor

The new 8,000-foot runway, at the left, increases airport takeoff and landing capacity at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport by 25 percent. (Photo courtesy MAC)

There's a new runway open for takeoffs and landings at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. Even with this expansion and the addition of runways at other airports, experts say we're approaching air travel gridlock in this country because the system isn't growing fast enough. They predict U.S. airports will be at capacity in less than 10 years and the problems created will affect the entire system, including the Twin Cities.

Minneapolis, Minn. — The new Minneapolis-St. Paul airport runway is an 8,000-foot long strip of concrete that, when you add the adjacent taxi ways and infrastructure, cost $700 million to build. The runway completes an airport expansion that started nearly 10 years ago. Airport officials say the new runway will allow up to 25 percent more landings and takeoffs.

Metropolitan Airports Commission chairwoman Vicki Tigwell says the added capacity will attract air travel business from Chicago's congested O'Hare airport.

"I think there's an opportunity for the Twin Cities to become the dominant city in the Midwest. I think most people today would say it's Chicago. Chicago is completely bottled up in their process to expand O'Hare and unable to establish a new airport," she says. Growth at MSP assumes there'll be plenty of demand, passengers who want to travel by air. Demand is growing. Air travel nationally is rising.

Tigwell says MSP is on course for a record number of passengers this year, continuing its standing as the country's eighth busiest facility.

Tigwell says some of the growth will come from passenger demand for short-hop, discount and charter service.

However, an attraction for many passengers is Minnesota-based Northwest Airlines' service to far flung destinations. Most of the people arriving and departing from the Twin Cities airport, 60 percent, are changing planes; coming from one place, going to another. The shrinkage or even disappearance of the bankrupt company threatens the airport's biggest passenger component.

Opposition to the new MSP runway emerged long before it was built. Four cities, Bloomington, Eagan, Richfield and Minneapolis have filed suits protesting the MAC's cut in soundproofing for homes affected by aircraft noise, including noise from planes using the new runway.

The Twin Cities airport expansion and runways being built at other airports add capacity to the country's air travel system. Even so, experts predict the system is headed for gridlock.

Howard Aylesworth, director of an influential trade group called the Aerospace Industries Association based in the Washington D.C. area, says the number of air travelers in this country will grow three-fold over the next 25 years. Well before then, as early as 2015, he says, the nation's airports will have run out of room to handle the takeoffs and landings.

"You will get to a gridlock situation, and at some point this is not a slight addition, but it really rapidly increases as you approach saturation," Aylesworth says.

However, time and environmental concerns are constraints. It can take a decade to plan and build a runway, and for a new airport, 30 years or more.

The Federal Aviation Administration's Carl Burleson says avoiding gridlock will also require changes in the country's air traffic control system and in cockpits.

Burleson says FAA tests show the system can handle more planes if aircraft instruments are improved, and if spaces between airplanes are reduced. A beneficial side effect, he says, is less noise.

"What we're working on is to bring in aircraft in the enroute system at a higher level, closer to the airport, and then bring them down in one continuous path so you don't have to change the power settings," Burleson explains. "What we found when we ran the tests at Louisville airport is we were able to reduce the noise profile by four to six decibels."

MAC officials say the Twin Cities airport will one day run out of space and need to be replaced with a new facility, perhaps as early as 2030.

However, MAC's own projections show that by 2015 the agency expects 723,000 landings and takeoffs a year. The projections show that activity beyond that level will begin causing delays.

Sen. Wes Skoglund, DFL-Minneapolis, and a longtime critic of airport planning, says land-banking should begin now for a new airport, given the 30 to 40 years needed to plan and build a new facility. But Skoglund says lawmakers are in no hurry to bring up airport expansion issues that are bound to rile some voters.

"I'm afraid that too many people would run against the airport, and take positions that don't make long-term sense for the future of our state, but would do it because it would be good for them politically," Skoglund says.

Lawmakers nearly a decade ago decided against planning for a new airport site when residents who might be affected rose in opposition.