Congress Blamed For Runway Delay

A project to update the runways at the Colorado Springs airport won?t happen as planned. That?s going to cost Colorado Springs some jobs this year.

?All airports nationwide have been fighting this battle for four years, trying to work with Congress to get them to come up with a multi-year FAA reauthorization,? said Mark Earle, Director of Aviation at the Colorado Springs airport.

The FAA partially shut down on July 23, after Congress failed to come to an agreement to reauthorize federal funds for the air traffic control system.

?The FAA was able to keep air traffic and a few other things running,? said Earle.

However, when it came to construction projects, the things that bring money and jobs into the community, Earle said those came to a screeching halt.

This year?s runway re-pavement project will be pushed off until 2012.

?Since we have older pavement that was deteriorating in place there, we’re going to incur additional maintenance costs,? said Earle.

But he says landing and takeoffs will be unaffected.

?We?ll keep it safe,? said Earle. ?We’ll make sure that it has no impact on passengers. But there are additional costs associated with maintaining an older piece of pavement.?

On Friday, Congress approved a 30-day extension that ended the partial shutdown. But according to Earle, it was too little, too late for the 2011 project.

Earle is hoping Congress will come up with a more permanent solution soon.

?What we?ve looking for,? said Earle,? and what we?re hoping for, is that Congress will eventually come to terms with a multi-year funding of the FAA like we used to do. So that we can rely on the funding stream that we have.?