Southwest Sues Paving Company over Cracks

Southwest Airlines has filed suit against the paving company that installed the aircraft apron at MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma that started cracking only months after it was completed.

In court papers filed this week in U.S. District Court, Dallas-based Southwest alleges that Pav-Co, the Holbrook paving company that installed the apron, failed to properly design and build the apron and to repair the cracks after they started appearing.

"We know it's not an emergency," said Cindy Buhr, a chief counsel for Southwest. "But we also know that whatever it is, we're going to want it fixed."

She said the company filed suit July 31 to preserve its rights because a performance bond insuring the work was set to expire the next day. The suit seeks unspecified damages.

Steven Pinks, an attorney who represents Pav-Co, was unavailable for comment yesterday. But Raymond Perini, who is representing one of Pav-Co's owners on federal charges of fraud and bid-rigging, said Pav-Co built the apron properly.

Newsday reported in June that potentially hazardous cracks had appeared in the apron, the area where planes pull up to the terminal. Such cracks are considered dangerous because debris can become lodged in them and get sucked into airplane engines, causing mechanical damage or accidents.

Its construction was part of an $82-million project by Southwest Airlines to add eight gates. The apron was completed in August 2004, and cracks began appearing by November, according to records.

Officials of Islip Town, which owns the airport, met yesterday with a firm hired to test the apron. They declined to disclose the results but have said previously that cracks came about because the apron sub-base was not thick enough.

Perini said that was not the case. "I've been advised by the town attorney that their initial findings are that the entire sub-base is there, all nine inches. That's not the problem."

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