Collaboration rather than competition is the watchword among the directors of the five St. Louis-area airports, according to panelists at a recent “Take Flight Forum” discussion (If you’re surprised to learn that St. Louis is served by five airports, you aren’t alone).
Led by moderator Mary Lamie, PE, executive vice president of multimodal enterprises with Bi-State, speakers provided highlights of their airports’ services, plans and challenges.
Paneists included: Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge, executive director, St. Louis Lambert International Airport, St. Louis, and chair, St. Louis Airport Commission; Sandra (Sandy) Shore, AAE, director, St. Louis Downtown Airport, Cahokia Heights and Sauget, Ill. — the busiest airport in Illinois outside of Chicago; Bryan Johnson, AAE, director, MidAmerica St. Louis Airport, Mascoutah, Ill., which operates under a Joint Use Agreement partnership with Scott Air Force Base; John Bales, director, Spirit of St. Louis Airport, Chesterfield, Mo. — the busiest business general aviation airport the in Federal Aviation Agency’s Central Region; and Daniel (Danny) Adams, director, St. Louis Regional Airport, E. Alton, Ill., home to West Star Aviation as the airport’s Fixed Base Operator (FBO).
The value of the region’s airport system is a total economic impact of more than $10 billion, Lamie noted. All five offer opportunities for commercial real estate projects as they improve or expand their facilities and infrastructures — St. Louis Regional alone has several sites available for development and plans for more than $7 million in improvements in 2023, including runway and parking lots rehabilitation, new fuel facility and new hangar taxi line.
The airports also represent 36,500 direct and indirect jobs — five times the number of aerospace jobs of any comparable area, with an average salary of $80,000/year, Lamie said — and a need for even more people to fill openings.
“We are at a nexus point and can make a difference,” said Taulby Roach, president and CEO of Bi-State. He urged the audience to work together on infrastructure “to provide citizens with the infrastructure they deserve.”
Each airport has a unique niche. St. Louis Regional {is that it is} 30 minutes from Downtown St. Louis and serves business from the smallest single-engine aircraft to the largest that can fly,” Adams said. “We cater to private owners.”
“Lambert is the largest airport in the state of Missouri and 32nd largest in the country, so it has a significant place in the aeronautics industry,” Hamm-Niebruegge said. Lambert serves both the general public and the cargo side and is a U.S. Department of Agriculture port of embarkation for animal transport, a service expected to be increasingly important for the future.
“We see ourselves as the front door to the business aviation community and we have a wide range of users, thanks to three flight schools and helicopter services,” said Shore of St. Louis Downtown. Its proximity to the downtown area adds to the airport’s value and identity.
“We’re better together — our partnership with Scott Air Force Base is unique. It is one of only 30 joint-use airports in the country,” said Johnson of MidAmerica. “We are an economic engine and are furthering low-cost airline models.”
“The Arch is the gateway to the west, and aviation is the gateway to the world,” Bales said. “We consider ourselves as a corporate resource. Travel through Spirit is at its highest of the past 15 years.” That includes a daily international flight.
Significant initiatives are alive and well at all five airports.
“We’re expanding our non-aeronautical business with a flight school, fuel service and reopened restaurant,” Adams said.
Lambert has opened a new state-of-the-art above-ground fuel farm at $70 million and is looking at efficiencies and working on a consolidated terminal plan “that should carry us into the next decade,” said Hamm-Niebruegge. Deconstruction is underway now and construction should be seen by 2026. Thanks to regional support, Lufthansa is coming back to Lambert.
Shore reported construction runup on a unique ground calibration project at St. Louis Downtown that will support airport tenants and better serve residential neighbors by reducing noise. A grant from Rebuild Illinois is a factor in the project.
Boeing will bring a facility for new aircraft, a $37 million new taxiway and bridge to MidAmerica, and the airport will also see a MetroLink connection in 2023, which Johnson called “a wonderful initiative.” A new U.S. Customs federal inspection station is also in the works.
Spirit of St. Louis is starting a masterplan as a roadmap for its future, Bales said, to include widening and strengthening runways and reconstructing the main runway at about $50 million. “We have no debt — we’re very proud of that,” he noted.
Spirit is also upgrading a flight department and focusing on working with the community, especially by supporting STEM projects that encourage young people to join the industry in positions beyond those of pilots.
All five regional airports share similar challenges. What makes that reality easier to face is the spirit of collegiality and collaboration among them, the speakers agreed. “We have friendly competition,” Adams noted.
Collaboration and collegiality were major attractions for Johnson in accepting his current position. “I was interested in the community and how all the entities work with the airports,” he recalled. “I see the leadership of the colleagues here contributing nationally to the industry as well as leading locally.”
Having five airports so close to each other would be an issue in some places, but “we don’t compete with each other — we look at each other as a strength of the region. We reach out a lot to our essential air services. There’s no other place in the country like it,” Hamm-Niebruegge said.
To foster that collaborative connection, Bales tells his clients not to lowball what they charge as FBOs to compete when new services appear at other airports. “We’re communicating with each other — we aren’t stealing people from each other,” he said.
That attitude is driven by current economic realities. “Market forces drive opportunity. We’re at a different point in time — it’s a global economy now, so we have to foster collaboration,” Johnson said.
All five of the airports are looking for employees, with attractive salaries averaging $110,000/year. “We need more people,” Adams said.
West Star alone could fill about 600 jobs; the airport is partnering with area colleges to improve the pipeline of new employees.
Workforce development is a $96 billion industry just in Illinois, according to Shore, and St. Louis Downtown is also engaging with college partners in response. “We want to find great young people early and show them what aviation has to offer. There’s aircraft and helicopter service and maintenance, the flight schools, FBO work — we all have a need for skilled craftspeople.”
The airports have seen resiliency despite extreme challenges of recent years, especially during the pandemic — Lambert, for instance, went from 4,000 flights a day to 500 essentially overnight.
“It’s cyclical, but I’m a believer that out of bad comes good,” Bales said. “I started at Spirit right after the flood of ’93, and the ’90s were both the worst and the best. In our industry, people are there to help. It’s important that we stick together. We’re competitors, but we are a team. We have to be resilient because a lot of people’s lives depend on us.”
As an example, Spirit’s air shows have a different angle from the past, Bales said. “We used to give to [a national children’s charity], but in 2014, we brought back the show with a focus on STEM and reaching out to young people with support not just from aviation, but to inspire them in STEM careers. It’s great for the region.”
“We’re working together much better at selling the region as a whole,” Hamm-Niebruegge said. “Covid set a whole new life for our industry. It was devastating, but we got stronger. But it will happen again — we have to think about that.”
In addition to health crises, political events could have a negative effect on the aviation industry, she noted: “If the Russia-Ukraine conflict goes beyond that, people won’t go there and our pilots will be pulled into military service.”
Regardless of economic and political realities, these St. Louis-area resources are making the region stronger by offering both general and business customers a wide range of opportunities for travel, jobs and expansion.
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Feature Photo: Taulby Roach welcomes attendees to the "Take Flight Forum" hosted by the St. Louis Regional Freightway at Bi-State Development in downtown St. Louis on November 16. PHOTO CREDIT: MWM STL.