Huntsville International Airport Updates

Curiosity Squad host, Alex Hall, is joined by Mary Swanstrom, PR Manager at Huntsville International Airport, to talk runway renovations, chargers at seats and non stop to the beach!

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Huntsville International Airport

Alex Hall I’m Alex Hall, host of WLRH Curiosity Squad. Huntsville International Airport is a key part of our region’s infrastructure, helping drive economic growth and development. I spotted a couple of interesting press releases this month, and I’m delighted to be joined by Mary Swanstrom, PR Manager, to explore more about what’s happening on the ground and in the air. Mary Huntsville is seeing year on year passenger growth, and I see you’ve just finished some multi-million dollar rehabilitation work on the east runway. Tell me about that project.

Mary Swanstrom So that’s a very important project. Our responsibility is to keep the pavement nice and nice and smooth and free of impediments and things, so that your plane can land and can depart safely.

Alex Hall And that runway takes not just passenger traffic, but a lot of other types of aircraft, right?

Mary Swanstrom We have very large aircraft that that take off and land at at Huntsville International. everything from just your, uh, express jets all the way up to. We had the Antonov there and, uh, seven forty seven come regularly with our air cargo operations.

Alex Hall And when was the runway last rehabilitated?

Mary Swanstrom The last time it was rehabilitated, I believe, was two thousand and nine. And this project took about fourteen months. So it’s a huge operation. And this is not even the longest runway we have. This is the east runway, which is ten thousand feet, right?

Alex Hall So it’s not just paving. There were sort of lighting upgrades, things like that.

Mary Swanstrom Definitely. We’re trying to be greener. And so the LED lights that were installed to replace the old lighting is much more energy efficient and brighter for our pilots. Safety.

Alex Hall Is the east runway the one that can technically accommodate the reusable space plane, the Dream Chaser?

Mary Swanstrom That’s right. That actually is the runway that is licensed to land the Dream Chaser by Sierra Space. And so some people think it must be the longer one because it’s a space plane. But actually it’s an unmanned spacecraft. And so it has been approved to land there on the east runway.

Alex Hall Is there any tentative date for when the Dream Chaser might try and land at Huntsville?

Mary Swanstrom I think that’s the thing. We’ll have to ask Sierra’s face, because although we’ve obtained our license to land it from the FAA, they have yet to. I believe they have to obtain a license to be able to fly it and land it there as well.

Alex Hall There’s been a lot of upgrades to the airport over the last couple of years. Tell me about some of those upgrades and how the passengers have been receiving them.

Mary Swanstrom So our terminal and concourse is what you’re talking about. The concourse has not been touched in about thirty years, maybe a little bit longer. So it looks like a thirty year old concourse. It has some interesting fuselage looking decorations up on the corners and the tile is on the floor. Not the not, you know, you hear you’re running your luggage over it. That familiar clackety clack, clack, clack, that’s all gone. We’ve replaced all of the flooring now with the beautiful, smooth terrazzo that you’ll see throughout the building. Basically, everywhere you look, there’s no surface that’s going to be untouched for the comfort of the passengers. And many who are traveling with their mobile phones or computers will be delighted to know that new seating is coming. And each seat will have its own charging port for your devices.

Alex Hall I noticed also there was a cell phone lot that was introduced. Has that been well received?

Mary Swanstrom This has been a wonderful boon to our operations out there because year over year, as you said, the past three years, we’ve broken passenger records. In this past year, over one point seven million passengers were up to eighteen nonstop flights from Huntsville, including some very desirable areas in Florida, Las Vegas and so forth. And so with that, we’ve had increased need for places for our Uber and Lyft and rideshare. And then also a lot of congestion can happen right in front of the terminal. People who are picking up and dropping off sort of a thing. So it was getting where we would have um all the lanes across were just stopped and waiting while we had, while they were waiting on perhaps several planes to come in at once. So to alleviate that, um, our construction department has built this cell phone waiting lot and you’ve seen them maybe at other airports or larger airports. So our rideshare drivers, Uber and Lyft can stay there. If you’re picking somebody up, just go and pull into that lot. It’s free. And when they get pick up their bag and are out there on the curb, they can text or call you and you just roll up, pick them up and you’re on your way.

Alex Hall I read that Allegiant Air are starting a new nonstop to the Gulf Shores. That’s coming up very, very soon. And what really excites the airport about that new passenger offering?

Mary Swanstrom Well, it’s the only intra commercial aviation service in the state where you can fly from one city in the state to another. And so having that connectivity from the north all the way to the south to the beach is huge. Uh, some of us or many of us have made that long trek, uh, from Huntsville down to Gulf Shores and the coast. And, uh, if you’re lucky, it’s six hours. Um, if there happens to be an accident or, you know, some construction that can easily stretch in seven, eight. I was coming back in April from Gulf Shores up to, uh, home here in Huntsville, and it took nine hours. So with this service in just under sixty minutes from Huntsville.

Alex Hall Yeah, that’s.

Mary Swanstrom Could be you could be at the Gulf. So I believe the flight leaves somewhere about in the afternoon, early afternoon. You could easily be down at the Gulf and having your lovely fresh seafood shrimp or, you know, fish dinner that evening.

Alex Hall Oh, that sounds wonderful. And how are you gearing up for the summer travel season?

Mary Swanstrom We have plenty of capacity. The airlines have provided to us. You know, the airlines have to want to be at our airport. And the best way to ensure that we have more nonstops and more flights is for our our community to use Huntsville airport. So they’re seeing the the growth here in our community. They’re seeing the opportunity. And so now we have twice daily flights to New York City. And then of course, we have that Las Vegas service. We’ve got daily service to Orlando, which is huge, not not to one airport, but to two airports in Orlando. And then we also have two airlines flying to Fort Lauderdale starting in June. Breeze is going to join Allegiant and flying to Fort Lauderdale. So that’s four times a week really. We’re gearing up for it just by trying to get our projects done, having our our concourse open and ready, and we’re really excited that we hope to have our brand new restaurant offerings open by that time.

Alex Hall Obviously, we’ve just seen the recent demise of Spirit Airlines, a low cost carrier. Are you yet seeing any impact on carriers or passenger traffic from the current rising fuel costs? Are you expecting to see that?

Mary Swanstrom So looking at industry information, what we are seeing is that commercial aviation is not slowing down. People might be cutting out dinners out, they might be cutting out manicures and things like that, but they are going on vacation. So I’d have to say that right now our load factors are looking really strong. I’m already seeing a lot of what looks like vacationing families coming through the airport. We always have a really strong business travel sector there, so we expect that that’s not going to change. Everybody seems to be going back to those those in-person meetings. So but we have plenty of capacity. We would just encourage folks, if they’re thinking of taking a vacation by air this year, go ahead and shop for that flight now. You might find some deals. And with two ultra low cost carriers, Breeze and Allegiant, your chances of finding a great deal are really high. From Huntsville.

Alex Hall A lot of people don’t realize that the airport, of course, is far more than just passenger carriage, and a lot of the planes landing on those runways are cargo. What does the forecast look like for cargo right now at the airport?

Mary Swanstrom Well, I know that there are developments around the country. There’s related to trucking. Not only is gas going higher, there are some of the we’ve seen some legislation regarding licenses and things like that for for some of the Over-the-road drivers, we have rail service that connects us to Savannah, the Port of Savannah, and then also multiple ports on the West Coast seaports that that is served by Norfolk Southern through Memphis. So I expect that we’ll see. Um, you know, we might see those change. Uh, it’s so, so interesting sometimes like during the Covid years when, um, when things were kind of clogged up and slower at the seaports, we saw more people or more companies sending by air cargo because, you know, that’s usually reserved for high dollar goods. In this case, it was goods that just needed to get there.

Alex Hall What’s on the airport’s master plan for the next couple of years? You know, what’s the hope as you look forward?

Mary Swanstrom So our master plan is published online, and if anybody would like to read all of it, they can just find it at Port of Huntsville dot com or fly Huntsville dot com. Just use the drop down menu and look for reports and you can find it there. But we have plans for expansion that include extra runways expanding over into the west side of our property. We have seven thousand four hundred acres there to expand on. We have lots of space for lots of business, and I think it just kind of depends on what we see. The climate of our community, the airport and the Port of Huntsville are important economic drivers for our region. We provide services to businesses that they could not survive in our community without. So we’re really happy to be able to provide that and also to, to support our city and our chamber and their efforts to bring more business to our area.

Alex Hall Well, I very much appreciate you coming in and updating us on, on what’s going on on the ground and in the air. Thank you for your time, Mary.

Mary Swanstrom Thanks, Alex.

Alex Hall You’re listening to Tennessee Valley Mornings.