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Hilton Head Mayor Tom Peeples balked at consultants' recommendation for a 5,400-foot runway -- 1,100 longer than the existing one. The extra 1,100 feet might mean encroaching on private property -- Palmetto Hall Plantation and the Baygall area north of the airport and the shopping center to the south, he said.
An extension might also require rerouting parts of William Hilton Parkway and Beach City Road.
And it would take years to litigate the purchase of all the private property in the runway's path, Peeples said.
"Fifty-four hundred feet is totally hypothetical, as if there were nothing in the way, and money were no object," said town manager Steve Riley in a interview after the consultants' presentation.
So what are the alternatives to a 5,400-foot runway?
Answers will come with the next installment of the airport's master plan, due in the coming months. The update will include at least three other possibilities that take into account the geographic and economic realities of the airport:
• Leaving the airport as it is, with a 4,300-foot runway.
• Extending the runway -- but not beyond the boundaries of airport property.
• Moving the airport to another location.
THE STATUS QUOThe Federal Aviation Administration, which is helping the town and county pay for the master plan, requires one of the options to be keeping the airport as is. But doing nothing will probably mean the eventual loss of commercial service, consultants said. Airlines are phasing out the kind of turboprop planes that can comfortably take off and land on the 4,300-foot runway, they said.
The airport could continue operating without commercial service, but there would be a big loss of revenue, according to county airports director Paul Andres.
Losing more revenue would exacerbate the airport's shaky financial condition. Historically, the airport has operated in the black, depending on the overall economy, the number of commercial airlines using it and the amount of capital investment made in any one year. But in the past 10 years, cash from operations has been heading downward, and the county has loaned the airport a total of about $1.6 million to cover operations. The airport also owes the county about $1.7 million for hangars built there.
A LIMITED EXTENSION
Acknowledging the airport's financial problems, Riley said keeping the runway at 4,300 feet is problematic.
"Realistically, we're going to have to expand to keep the airport going," he said.
With an extension of only 500 feet, the runway could better accommodate commercial planes that currently serve the airport, Riley and Peeples said. The runway would be 4,800 feet long, 600 feet less than the 5,400 feet recommended by the consultants and not too long to fit within the airport's boundaries.
And it would allow commercial planes used by the two airlines that serve the airport to operate more efficiently.
Planes used by Delta Air Lines and USAirways sometimes must take off from the airport with less than a full load of passengers because the existing runway sometimes isn't long enough for a fully loaded plane to attain the airspeed needed to become airborne. Weather is a factor -- the hotter and more humid the day, the longer the take-off roll has to be.
Consultants said they settled on a 5,400-foot runway because that's what many private jets need; so will regional jets that airlines may switch to once the turboprop planes they now fly are shelved.
Riley said it's not a certainty that next-generation planes the airlines switch to will require a 5,400-foot runway.
OFF-ISLAND AIRPORT
Making changes at the airport has often resulted in disagreements between Beaufort County, which owns the airport, and the town, which controls how land on the island can be used. County Administrator Gary Kubic, frustrated by the latest disagreement over the length of the runway, suggested Thursday that transferring ownership of the airport to the town might be the best solution.
The quarreling has prompted some to suggest moving the airport off the island. Town Council member Bill Ferguson suggested the town and county build a new airport on the Ulmer Tract, a parcel in Bluffton that's almost eight times the size of the current airport property.
That not a feasible solution, said Riley.
Kathleen Bergen, an FAA spokeswoman, agreed: "The FAA would not support that."
"Building a new airport is a huge undertaking, a 10-year process at minimum," she said.
Some island residents and pilots continue to support a 5,400-foot runway. The longer runway could accommodate more private jets and increase the number of corporate meetings on the island -- and in turn inject more money into the local economy, said James Coyne, president of the National Air Transportation Association, an aviation interest group.
Both the Mayor's Task Force for the Island's Future and the town's Comprehensive Plan Committee have recommended developing corporate meeting business to bolster the island's economy.
"We need to see the airport for its economic potential for the island," said Tom Crews, chairman of the Comprehensive Plan Committee.
"Right now we're making airport policy with tunnel vision and lots of emotion," he said.
