Palwaukee Airport stays all business

In 81 years, a regularly scheduled passenger airliner never has taken off or landed at Palwaukee Municipal Airport.

And that's just fine with the airport's owners, the village of Wheeling and the city of Prospect Heights.

"No, we don't want it," said Wheeling village President Greg Klatecki. "We want the private."

At "rush hour," gleaming twin-engine business jets carrying up to 10 passengers swoop in and out of the airport every five minutes or so. They are lined up like cars by ground personnel waving orange light wands.

Businesspeople, families and sometimes a lone individual hop out with bags in hand and rush into private terminals.

In 2004, the Federal Aviation Administration named the airport Chicagoland's top reliever airport. And it is a powerful economic engine for the communities of Wheeling and Prospect Heights.

"You always hear O'Hare is the economic engine for Chicago; well, we are a miniversion of that," said Kevin Dohm, a United Airlines pilot and chairman of the Palwaukee Municipal Airport board.

Wheeling is relying on the airport as a key building block for its future, Klatecki said. Many of the factories that once made the community of 35,000 a thriving industrial center shut their doors in recent decades.

That's why Wheeling and Prospect Heights bought the airport in 1986. The two municipalities recently reformed the airport's governing board to ensure firm direction in airport matters.

Activity at Palwaukee Municipal made a $160 million contribution to the local economy, according to a 1998 report by the state of Illinois. A new report is due out this fall.

Airports like Palwaukee that are near large cities and built to handle business jets are thriving all across the United States. Delays and security hassles at airports like O'Hare are driving well-heeled people and corporations to the smaller airports.

Gary/Chicago International Airport is part of that trend.

Air charters at the Gary airport more than doubled in the last five years, with 1,577 charter flights coming through the airport in 2005, according to Federal Aviation Administration statistics.

Three years ago, Gary won out over Palwaukee and other airports that competed to host Boeing Corp.'s corporate jet fleet when it relocated its headquarters from Seattle to Chicago.

Charters, business and general aviation travel at Gary keep the airport viable, while it waits to land a passenger airline that can make the airport take off. Private travel also could play a major role in the future of the airport, particularly if it cannot draw a major airline.

"The corporate is important, because corporate pays landing fees, parking and fuel charges," said Gary airport director Chris Curry. "They are an important part of all this."

But Curry and others don't see corporate jets, charters and general aviation as the only option for the airport's future.

An all-out effort to land a major airline continues. And the airport still hopes to grow its cargo service.

Hooters Air was the last airline to offer regular passenger service at Gary. For a brief time in 2004, the airport had service from both Hooters and Southeast Airlines.

The airport doesn't have to make a choice between private corporate and passenger service, according to aviation consultant Michael Boyd.

The two can develop in tandem, with many of the same forces, such as overcrowding at O'Hare and Midway airports, driving corporate and passenger travel forward at Gary.

"It's not an either-or proposition at Gary," Boyd said.

The corporate business at airports like Palwaukee and Gary will continue to grow as more business travelers seek to avoid the hassles of major airports, Boyd said.

Last year, 12,200 charter flights flew in and out of Palwaukee, according to FAA figures. That's almost a three-fold increase from 4,200 charter flights recorded there seven years before.

Altogether, there were 122,000 landings and takeoffs at Palwaukee last year, a number that approaches that of some of the busiest corporate and general aviation airports in the United States.

On an August afternoon at his office at Palwaukee, Priester Aviation President and COO Andy Priester compared current developments in private jet travel to the situation at Palwaukee more than 40 years ago.

In the early 1960s, his late grandfather George, who had owned the airport since 1953, started talking with corporate aircraft manufacturers about what his airport would need to host business jets, which were just then coming on the market.

As a result, a 5,000-foot runway was built in 1965 and an FAA traffic control tower was commissioned there two years later.

"He built and designed this airport for the coming of the jet age," Priester said.

The Priester family sold the airport to the municipalities of Wheeling and Prospect Heights in 1986, but has remained active at the airport with Priester Aviation.

The company was a fixed-base operator serving the general aviation community for more than a decade after the sale. Today, it is the biggest charter operator in the Midwest with 30 jets and 115 employees under its management.

It is just one of dozens of employers at the airport. Altogether, about 450 people work at Palwaukee filling jobs such as pilot, flying instructor, mechanic, air traffic controller, heavy equipment operator, cook and waiter.

The airport hosts 57 corporate jets. Their owners comprise a who's who of corporate America on the North Shore. Cell phone maker Motorola Corp. has a $6 million hangar there with four jets. Others basing jets there include Allstate Insurance Co., Klein Tools Inc., and Duchossois Industries Inc.

Palwaukee Municipal Airport Manager Dennis Rouleau won't go as far as to say those types of companies located or stay in the area because of the airport. That's like the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg, he says.

But there is no doubt in the airport director's mind that the airport is an important part of the overall business environment that keeps and attracts such companies to the region. He compares airports like Palwaukee today to off-ramps on interstate highways, which were keenly sought by communities 50 years ago when the interstate system was being built.

"There are only so many commercial airports out there, the O'Hares, the Midways," Rouleau said. "But there are lots of Palwaukees, lots of Garys, lots of Lansings (Lansing Municipal Airport) out there, and they are closer to where you are going."