Airport paying too much for hangars?
At least one member of The Tulsa Airport Improvement Trust is questioning why the trust will pay $2.3 million to Tulsair Beechcraft for two aging hangars.
The purchase is for the hangars alone because the property is owned by the airport and only leased by Tulsair Beechcraft.
They will be torn down to pave the way for reconstruction of the main north-south runway.
That five-year, $75 million reconstruction of the 10,000-foot main north-south runway, commercial airline traffic will begin in a year.
Charles Sublett, a trustee of the TAIT, said in a meeting it seems the trust is paying way too much for hangars it will simply demolish. Sublett and other airport officials could not be reached for further comment.
Tulsair Beechcraft’s Hangars 8 and 10 at Tulsa International Airport are on the west end of the 7,376-foot east-west crosswind runway. According to Federal Aviation Administration rules, buildings, hangars or obstructions at the end of runways.
Sublett was taken aback by the size of the appraisal for the two hangars, saying that they “defied common sense.”
Airports Director Jeff Mulder said FAA grants would pay for $2,250,000 of the cost and the airport would make up the difference ($118,421).
The FAA appraised value was $2.9 million, which was based on income value, not property value. In other words, Tulsair Beechcraft would be paid for loss of potential income rather than for the actual value of the hangars.
Airport administrators and Tulsair Beechcraft officials signed a 20-year-lease on the company’s property with a reduced rate apparently because the FAA appraisal was higher than available funding. Tulsair will get a subsidized lease dropped from 11 percent of fair market value of the land to 8 percent until 2014, when the rate will return to 11 percent.
Tulsair Beechcraft plans to build a 30,000-square-foot replacement hangar.
While the airport’s budget has not suffered like the city’s operational budget, airline passenger traffic last month at Tulsa International Airport was 3.8 percent lower than the total for November 2008.
In November of 2009, the total was 226,114.
In the first 11 months of 2009, passenger traffic at the airport was 2.59 million people, which is a drop of 11.8 percent from the same period last year.