By Erik Potter, Post-Tribune staff writer
For most of the past decade, the way to make that happen was seen as extending Gary's main runway, with its 7,000 feet so boxed in by train tracks and the Grand Calumet River that the big jets favored by major airlines can't use it.
The airport's 2001 master plan set the expansion in motion. But in a dramatically different world where fuel is no longer cheap and recessions no longer impossible, landing a runway 1,900 feet longer may be necessary for growth, but not necessarily sufficient.
Starting out
The road to 8,900 feet has been a long one.
After the master plan was adopted, it had to be reviewed by the Federal Aviation Administration to make sure the proposed changes would conform to FAA code, which happened that same year.
The plans also involved the disturbance of 40 acres of wetlands, so the U.S. Department of Transportation and the FAA had to conduct an environmental impact study in order to prescribe how the expansion could go forward with minimum environmental impact. That was completed in 2005.
After that, the airport just needed money. With the backing of Gov. Mitch Daniels, U.S. Sens. Evan Bayh and Richard Lugar, and U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, the airport was able to receive a long-term grant agreement from the FAA.
Approved in 2006, the grant committed $57.8 million of FAA money over 10 years. Along with nearly $10 million from the city of Chicago and $20 million from the state, the airport was set to move.
Property acquisition began in 2005.
Expanding a runway requires lots of room, not just to lay down a 1,900-foot stretch of concrete, but also to provide a buffer area beyond the runway in case an airplane needed more room than expected to take off or land. The airport currently does not have a large enough safety zone and is operating under an exemption from the FAA, which will expire in 2015. At that point, if the expansion weren't completed yet, the airport would have to shrink the usable length of its runway by about 1,000 feet to make room for that buffer zone.
To make room for its expansion, the airport board has acquired 18 parcels of land covering about 170 acres at a cost of about $5.5 million -- about 95 percent of the land it needs.
On part of that safety zone there used to be a Citgo storage tank, which had to be removed and replaced at a different location. The airport finished that project in January at a cost of $2.45 million.
Also in the way on the northwest side of the airport were two other obstructions: high-voltage electric lines and the Cline Avenue access road.
The electric lines have to be buried, a lengthy process that's been ongoing for years and will finished next month at a cost of approximately $17.5 million. One of the two lanes that exited from Cline Avenue to Chicago Avenue had to be closed to make room for the expansion, which cost $70,000 to buy the land from the Indiana Department of Transportation. That project was completed in 2007.
Moving forward
The stubborn problem that remains is moving the railroads.
The airport borders three different railroads. Originally, airport officials planned to reach an agreement with all three companies to move their tracks and clear the way for lengthening both the main and cross-wind runways.
That turned into a more complicated proposition than the airport anticipated, and officials are now hoping to do a modified plan that, for now, will just move the EJ&E track to make room for the main runway expansion.
Airport Director Chris Curry said he expects to make a request to the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority for money to help with that relocation in the coming weeks. Most of that cost will be paid from the FAA grant money, but the airport will also look to the RDA for approximately $8 million.
Will it work?
The airport conducted a study of six cargo carriers in 1999 to determine what the cargo industry needed from Gary before it would locate there and used the results as a guide for their development plans. It showed the need for a longer runway and better landing instruments.
But the study also revealed another shortcoming: location.
Several of the interviews showed companies that were reluctant to locate on the south side of Chicago, since most of their business clients were on the north side of the city.
"There is no demand by customers to serve GYY (Gary airport)," the study said of Airborne Express, a small package shipper.
FedEx interviews showed that, "Gary is not situated close to a large volume of its traffic."
UPS said it might look at Gary instead of adding flights to O'Hare, but it needed enough volume on the south side to make it worth it.
The airport has focused on attracting passenger flights first, with cargo following, but those propositions remain difficult as well.
"In the long run, yes, (the runway expansion) will help, but I don't think it will have much of an effect on scheduled (passenger) flying in the near term," said aviation expert Aaron Gellman, a professor of management and strategy at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.
Gellman said he didn't see Gary landing passenger airlines until O'Hare and Midway started to fill, which he doesn't expect will happen soon, especially with O'Hare's new runway.
But both he and Airport Director Curry saw an immediate impact on charter flights, which will benefit from the improved safety zones.
Boeing, which keeps its corporate jets in Gary, sometimes has to fly to Chicago and fill its jets with cargo there because, depending on where the flight is going, the planes can't take off fully loaded from Gary.
"(That's) still a situation you don't want to deal with if you happen to overrun the runway," Curry said, speaking for charter and corporate fliers. "Because there's nowhere for you to go except into the railroad embankment."