HIGHFILL — Airline passengers using Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport next year can expect to taxi on a runway rebuilt for $40 million, buy more personal services such as manicures and shoeshines, and check flights on an updated airport website.
The airport authority on Wednesday approved a $58.68 million budget for 2013 that includes those projects, as well as plans to build a new, $2.68 million carwash for use by the airport’s six rental-car vendors.
The biggest project, the rebuilt runway, is on schedule for flights in the fall, Airport Director Kelly Johnson told the board Wednesday. The 8,800-foot concrete strip had to be replaced after it developed cracks from a chemical reaction known as alkali-silica reactivity, which also has damaged several other U.S. runways.
The U.S. Department of Transportation in September announced a $19.5 million grant that will help pay for the work. Earlier federal grants for the project totaled about $20 million. After the reconstruction is complete, the airport hopes to start rebuilding a taxiway that suffered the same damage.
A secondary runway now handles the airport’s 280 commercial flights per week.
The carwash is the second at the airport for the use of six vendors whose fleets total about 1,400 rental cars. The car-rental businesses will pay the airport about $2.3 million in 2013 in operating fees for parking, terminal space and a percentage of their revenue.
The airport near Bentonville has an unusually high percentage of business travelers — 55 to 70 percent in any given month, Johnson said. Many travelers are vendors flying into Northwest Arkansas to deal with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. or other companies.
“With so much business travel, we have an unusual situation,” Johnson said. “Through the week, it sometimes seems like you can’t get a rental car. On the weekends, you can’t find a space to park one.”
The airport places part of its rental-car revenue into escrow for use in capital projects such as the new carwash, which will go into service along with the existing carwash that the airport opened in 1999.
Airport Executive Director Scott Van Laningham told the board that another project that will draw from the rental-car fund will be a parking deck, estimated to cost $10 million and budgeted for 2016. Airport officials hope to build it sooner if funding is found.
Airport officials also are weighing whether to offer valet parking service for airline passengers in 2013, as well as an option to have their vehicles cleaned and serviced while they’re away.
Other changes for the new budget year, which starts Jan. 1, include:
$35,000 to revamp the airport’s website, nwara.com, and link the airport to social media such as Facebook and Twitter.
“Our website isn’t easy to navigate,” Johnson told the airport authority. “And Facebook and Twitter are something everyone else does that we haven’t touched much.”
Three-percent raises for the airport’s 43 full-time and 16 part-time employees. There are hundreds of other workers at the airport, but many are federal employees or contractors who handle security and air traffic control.
An eight-seat cart to provide rides for passengers who need help getting to their cars in the parking lot, or need a ride from the lot into the terminal. This option may start as early as Christmas, Johnson said.
Business, Pages 25 on 12/13/2012