Remember Meigs Field? The City of Chicago's lakefront airport reopened on February 10, 1997, for at least five years under the terms of an agreement between Chicago and the State of Illinois. Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, who in 1994 had announced plans to build a $27 million park and nature preserve on the site, closed the facility on October 1, 1996. The closing hardly came as a surprise. The city had been threatening to close Merrill C. Meigs Field, an FAA-designated reliever for Chicago O'Hare International and Chicago Midway airports, for several years. After unsuccessfully appealing to the FAA to uphold federal grant obligations, AOPA representatives in July 1996 met with General Accounting Office investigators to plead the airport's case. Eventually the association, along with the Friends of Meigs Field airport support organization and five other plaintiffs, filed suit in federal court to keep the airport open. Meanwhile, the Illinois Department of Transportation offered to lease the airport and take over operation of Meigs Field, but the city refused the offer. The events surrounding Meigs as well as threats to Reid-Hillview Airport in San Jose, California, and Bader Field in Atlantic City, New Jersey eventually led AOPA to launch its Airport Support Network in October 1997 (see " Runway Success").
Ultimately the AOPA-led legal challenge was unsuccessful. However, the Illinois Department of Transportation had filed suit in state court, claiming that Chicago had violated contractual agreements to keep Meigs operating. The state also sought to take over the airport. At the time, the Illinois legislature had a Republican majority, and then-Gov. Jim Edgar was a Republican as well. Daley is a Democrat. Politically, events were becoming highly charged, and Daley brushed off any suggestion of compromise.
But a wild card was played on December 4, 1996, when the Illinois legislature passed a measure allowing the state to take over Meigs the following June; Edgar signed the legislation on December 16. On January 6, 1997, shortly before Illinois state legislators were to vote on a measure that would have authorized an immediate takeover, state and city officials announced an agreement to keep Meigs Field open for five more years. Kirk Brown, Illinois' secretary of transportation, credited efforts of AOPA and local Friends of Meigs members with providing the political support and public awareness to force the issue. "This agreement wouldn't have happened if it weren't for the support from AOPA and the Friends of Meigs," he told AOPA President Phil Boyer at the time.
If during the five-year period Chicago defaults on the agreement, the state may take immediate control of the airport. When the period ends on February 10, 2002, the state is enjoined from interfering in Chicago's use of the Meigs Field property.
Some perspective
Meigs Field is located on Northerly Island, a manmade island in Lake Michigan that was the site of the 1932 Century of Progress Exposition. The airport was opened to traffic on December 10, 1948, and was renamed Merrill C. Meigs Field the next year to honor the pioneer Chicago pilot and former chairman of the Chicago Aero Commission. Meigs celebrated its fiftieth anniversary on December 10, 1998, with a party in the airport's terminal building thrown by Friends of Meigs.
People unfamiliar with Chicago's politics may not understand how powerful the city's mayor historically has been, or appreciate the strength of the Daley legacy. Indeed, the current mayor is not the first who has wanted to close the airport. In the 1970s his father, Mayor Richard J. Daley, wanted to turn Meigs into a park. At the time AOPA's Boyer was general manager of WLS-TV channel 7 in Chicago and a private pilot; 1978 found him standing beside the Meigs runway, taping an editorial that supported keeping the airport open. Two years later, Mayor Jane Byrne proposed closing the airport.
Another issue may also contribute to the airport rift between the city and the state. Gov. Edgar had proposed a new metropolitan airport in Peotone, south of Chicago, and new Gov. George H. Ryan supports that plan. Daley prefers the existing airport in Gary, Indiana, and supported creation of the Chicago/Gary Regional Airport Authority. Now the Gary/Chicago Airport receives $1.5 million per year in passenger facility charges collected primarily at O'Hare and Midway. Gary also handles some cargo flights that formerly landed at O'Hare.
And Daley's lakefront plans aren't limited to Northerly Island. Last year The Chicago Tribune reported that he would like to bulldoze the oldest building in the McCormick Place convention complex'which lies on the lakefront adjacent to Meigs'even as officials proposed adding a fourth building to the facility. "In his open-space reveries, Daley has visions much bigger and greener than merely converting Meigs Field from an airport to a nature park in 2002," the newspaper said. "Though he believes the Meigs conversion is a good start, he's itching to add the McCormick Place site to his legacy."
Meigs' location makes it a great destination. The Loop — Chicago's downtown business district'and Soldier Field are minutes away. Visitors can walk to the Adler Planetarium, the Field Museum of Natural History, and the Shedd Aquarium. But pleasure flying accounts for only 12 percent of airport usage, according to Friends of Meigs Field. Business is responsible for 76 percent and conventions, mostly at McCormick Place, account for the remaining 12 percent. More than half the users arrive from outside of Illinois.
Chicago's business community appears to support Meigs. "My perception is that the business community is unanimously in favor of keeping this airport," said Chicago attorney George Bullwinkel, AOPA's Airport Support Network volunteer for Meigs. But Daley rejected a request from the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago to preserve the airport, and once lectured John B. McCoy — at the time, chairman and CEO of Bank One Corp. — for opposing Daley's plan for the airport. This seems to have quieted some who might otherwise support Meigs.
The city's residents also expressed support for the airport. In a July 1996 poll by the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ-FM radio, 42 percent of respondents favored keeping the airport; 32 percent supported the park; and 26 percent didn't know or care. The Sun-Times itself initially supported the park idea and then recanted, saying that the airport option should be considered.
But Daley appears determined to close the airport. His desire for a parkland legacy is a recurring theme in Chicago media, despite the consensus in an informal survey of Chicago cab drivers that the site will eventually host a casino or riverboat gambling. Regardless, the Meigs issue is apparently very personal to Daley.
Operations today
Meigs Field's 3,900-foot north/south runway opens promptly at 6 each morning. Since its reopening the airport has gained VOR and GPS instrument approaches. Signature Flight Support provides FBO services, but there are no hangars or maintenance available. The last plane out must depart by 10 p.m., when the tower shuts down. (Operations are prohibited when the tower is closed.) Of course, you may depart after 10 p.m. if you're flying Microsoft's Flight Simulator; the popular simulation program uses Meigs for its default flight scenario.
How many times that runway is used each day is less clear. The tower tallies contacts, which can include transient aircraft that do not land at Meigs, while the city counts revenue-producing landings. "The traffic count as we understand it is slightly down," when compared to numbers from before the 1996 closure, said Richard Steinbrecher, operations manager for Friends of Meigs. He said the city does not allow student flying at Meigs and more recently prohibited touch and goes. "These two factors indicate to me that they are trying to keep traffic counts as low as possible," he said, adding that Meigs has the highest landing fees of any comparable U.S. airport "by orders of magnitude." The airport had 51,058 operations in 1995 and 41,725 — plus 30,425 overflights that the tower handled'in 1999. (A spokesperson for the City of Chicago's Department of Aviation would not answer questions for this article.)
Steve Whitney, Friends of Meigs' president, noted that the landing fee went up 33 percent when the airport reopened. A two-hour visit in a piston single will cost about $34 in landing and parking fees, he said.
Whitney said he thought that Chicago was living up to the terms of the Meigs agreement, except for the fact that the control tower's operating hours were never extended to midnight; that possibility was supposed to be investigated. The city has done little to promote the airport, another requirement of the agreement. Meigs is included on the Department of Aviation's Web site, but one photo shows the runway when the airport was closed'the runway numbers and chevrons are painted out in black. "The fact that they're not trying to maximize the airport's potential shows that they're concerned that a successful airport would be worth more than simply a park," Whitney commented.
AOPA's Great Lakes regional representative, Bill Blake, was the Illinois state director of aeronautics when the five-year deal was crafted and signed. Blake, Phil Boyer, and other AOPA staff have represented the association at numerous meetings regarding Meigs Field. During a meeting in Chicago in early May, Boyer learned that Daley family members ironically have used Meigs for some of their transportation needs.
Friends of Meigs, which now has more than 3,500 members, is concentrating on building support for the airport. "We're working to make Meigs as good an airport as it can be," he said. "We're holding regular events at the airport to build public support."
The group plans to hold its fifth annual fly-in at the airport on September 16. The event couldn't be held the weekend before, when the International Machine Tool Show is scheduled at McCormick Place, because the airport would be too crowded. But scheduling the 1999 event was even more interesting. "Last year we asked [the city] for a two-day event. They asked us to hold the second day of the Friends of Meigs Field open house at the Gary [Indiana] airport," Whitney explained. "We politely declined."
Since 1994, the Chicago chapter of the Tuskeegee Airmen — which includes some of the U.S. military's first African-American pilots, renown for their exemplary combat record during World War II — has flown city children from Meigs each month under the auspices of the Experimental Aircraft Association's Young Eagles program. Friends of Meigs became formally involved in 1998. "We have a very strong Young Eagles program. Last year we flew more than 750 kids. It's a well-known program, and it's known in areas that are not well known for general aviation," Whitney said. "There's a tremendous public awareness of that program at Meigs Field."
Friends of Meigs is launching a speakers' bureau this spring, to talk to community groups about the airport's value. Based on a 1992 City of Chicago economic impact study, Whitney said, Meigs users contribute $57 million to $80 million annually to the local economy.
The future
AOPA is staying abreast of all issues regarding the airport, and is carefully crafting proactive plans to address the looming closure. "There has to be a win-win situation in this dispute," Boyer said. "The mayor should get a place for the public to enjoy, and the city should retain an important landmark and a valuable asset to the downtown economy."
Meanwhile, Friends of Meigs is focusing on keeping the airport visible locally. "We're also trying to foster a civic dialog on ways to preserve the airport and enhance Chicago's great parks system," Whitney said. "I'm very hopeful that when intelligent people look at it in an informed way, the final solution will preserve Meigs Field as a valued part of Chicago's lakefront.
"If we're unsuccessful with the other campaigns, darn it, we're going to fight it out in every legal forum and venue that we can." Whitney hopes that the organization doesn't have to. "But if we do, we're ready."
Links to additional information about airport issues and AOPA's Airport Support Network can be found on AOPA Online ( www.aopa.org/pilot/links/links0006.shtml). E-mail the author at [email protected].
Cleveland's Gem
Burke Lakefront Airport is going places
On the shore of Lake Erie in Cleveland, some 267 nm east of Meigs Field, lies a similar airport with a significantly brighter future. In fact, the two lakefront airports present a study in contrasts — where Meigs Field is shunned by the City of Chicago, Burke Lakefront Airport is embraced by the City of Cleveland.
Burke boasts parallel runways of 6,198 and 5,200 feet. The airport offers two full-service FBOs, several flight schools, and has more than 80 based aircraft. The control tower operates 24 hours a day, and Customs and immigration service are available by prior arrangement. But the more significant difference is that Cleveland recognizes the asset that it has in Burke Lakefront, and treats it as an integral part of the city's airport system.
Installation of the airport's instrument landing system, commissioned in December 1998, presented some interesting challenges. Smokestacks on a power plant located near the extended runway centerline for Runway 24R had to be removed. The city also had to negotiate with the Coast Guard and a nearby yacht club to control high-masted sailboats in a channel near the approach path. The ILS has a decision height of 273 feet agl, compared to the localizer's minimum descent altitude of 577 feet, noted Solomon F. Balraj, director of Cleveland's Department of Port Control, which administers Burke Lakefront and Cleveland-Hopkins International airports. Most charter and corporate users will not even consider using an airport if it is not equipped with an ILS, he noted.
Sam Aboumerhi, who flies a traffic reporter out of Burke, said the lower minimums can make a big difference — especially in the summer, when fog can develop unexpectedly over the lake. He said the new ILS is bringing more corporate traffic. "I've noticed that a lot of corporate jets that were going to [Cuyahoga] County [Airport, 10 miles east of Cleveland] are coming to Lakefront now," he said. "You can definitely tell the difference."
Burke had about 89,000 flight operations in 1998 — a number expected to increase to more than 120,000 by 2015. Weekdays see primarily corporate traffic, while weekends are mostly recreational.
But the airport's future wasn't always so rosy. During the 1980s, there was a push to convert Burke's acreage into low-cost housing, recalled Tom Slavin, president of Million Air-Cleveland, one of the airport's FBOs. Slavin said that Michael Barth, the airport's commissioner, was the person most responsible for the airport's turnaround. "We've had a combination of an enlightened aviation commissioner and good leadership at city hall," he said.
A plan to add another runway at Cleveland-Hopkins could displace the FBOs and corporate hangars there, Slavin said. "What we have at Burke is an opportunity to be a true reliever airport. I think that the future of Hopkins is going to be commercial and the future of Burke is going to be corporate, air freight, and recreational flying."
The city recognizes Burke's value as part of an airport system, using revenues from Hopkins to offset operating losses at Burke. "While we're on a growth cycle, we're still subsidized by Hopkins," Slavin commented.
Future plans could include a new runway, which could be built on a fill being created by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers using material dredged from the Cuyahoga River. It is expected to add 40 acres of land by 2015.
Today Burke offers visitors convenient access to Cleveland's downtown financial district. Within easy walking distance of the airport are the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum; the Great Lakes Science Center; the U.S.S. Cod, a World War II-era submarine; and the William G. Mather, a Great Lakes ore carrier that is now a museum. Also nearby are the new Cleveland Browns stadium; Jacobs Field, home of the Cleveland Indians; Gund Arena; the Playhouse Square theater district; and The Flats, an entertainment district along the Cuyahoga River.
In addition, the International Women's Air and Space Museum ( www.iwasm.org) recently moved into the airport's terminal building. The museum's exhibits are becoming part of the terminal's decor. One, about Katharine Wright, explains how Orville and Wilbur's sister encouraged the brothers.
Although Burke Lakefront Airport is focusing on its future, it has not turned its back on the past. — MPC
Runway Success
Airport Support Network helps to protect airports
For several years, surveys have indicated that saving airports is among AOPA members' most important concerns. That knowledge, combined with continuing problems at Meigs Field and several other airports — including Reid-Hillview Airport in San Jose, California, and Bader Field in Atlantic City, New Jersey — led AOPA to create the Airport Support Network. Launched at AOPA Expo '97 in Orlando, the ASN program seeks to eventually identify a volunteer at every public-use airport in the United States who can inform AOPA of threats to the field and help to lead a local airport support organization.
George Bullwinkel, a Chicago attorney, became AOPA's Airport Support Network volunteer for Meigs Field in April 1999. A pilot since 1957, he is a partner in a Cessna 182. Like other ASN volunteers, Bullwinkel attends meetings about Meigs and generally monitors the airport. He also enjoys taking young people for their first flights and participates in regular Young Eagles flights at Meigs. "I flew 20 or 30 kids last year," Bullwinkel said. "It's a fun thing to do. They all react differently."
More than 800 other volunteers have been named at airports across the country. More information on the Airport Support Network program'including a list of airports where volunteers are particularly needed'is available on AOPA Online ( www.aopa.org/asn/). — MPC
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