By Erik Potter, Post-Tribune staff writer
Does a changing airline market require a different approach to airport development?
That is the question the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority has been attempting to answer this summer in order to guide future investment in the Gary/Chicago International Airport.
The RDA has already contributed $20 million toward the airport's runway expansion project, a requirement of the state legislation that created the RDA.
Earlier in the year, the RDA hired a consultant to study the airport and see where RDA money would best be invested.
On Monday morning, several members of the board met with the consultant, Matt Reardon of Short Elliot Hendrickson Inc., to get a briefing on his progress and ask questions.
Gus Olympidis, chairman of the agency's airport committee, said the approach to airport development, until now, has been, "If you build it, they will come," meaning, if a serviceable passenger airport was built, airlines would start flying out of Gary.
"It was a sound strategy in the context of $1.50 gasoline. The question is, has the reality of the energy costs that have skyrocketed in the last year (invalidated) that strategy?" he asked. "We need to affirm that this is still a sound strategy."
The board also asked about putting a greater emphasis on cargo traffic, as Gary Mayor Rudy Clay and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley have suggested.
Attracting more cargo traffic could pose significant infrastructure demands, however, since cargo planes are typically larger and have less sophisticated computer equipment than passenger planes.
The board hopes to have a final report by the end of September.