The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport approved increasing the contract of the architecture and engineering firm overseeing construction of the new terminal up to $10,000 on Thursday.
HNTB, Pennsylvania Inc. will be paid to inspect the fireproofing in the building, according to a change order approved by the bi-county board of commissioners that runs the airport.
Airport Executive Director Barry Centini admitted the inspection was overlooked when asked by Luzerne County Commissioner Steve Urban.
It was a miss by everyone, Centini said at the boards monthly meeting.
The oversight also puzzled Lackawanna County Commissioner A.J. Munchak. Its like for a year theres always change orders, he said. It just seems so odd, said Munchak, who acknowledged he has no construction background.
The change order, though irritating, Centini said, is small compared to the overall $4.4 million contract with HNTB for the design of the terminal. For the entire terminal building construction which has 11 contracts, change orders amount to over $1 million on the $45 million project, he said.
I look a little bit beyond this, and I think the boards vision is beyond this, Centini said. We look to the day that were going to open a brand new terminal building in Northeastern Pennsylvania. And if we can keep it within our grand amounts, so be it.
Construction on the new terminal is more than 61 percent complete.
Without any further questioning, the board approved two other change orders: $138,056 to Pikes Creek Site Contractors for additional work on the terminal project and $11,340 to S.G. Mastriani Co. for the construction of a new cargo building. The changes increased Pikes Creek contract to $11, 283, 402 and Mastrianis to $742,761.
In other business, the number of people boarding planes at the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport increased 4 percent in April from a year ago, the airport reported.
For the month there were 19,248 enplanements compared to 18,507 for April 2004. In addition, enplanements for the first four months of the year increased 10 percent to 71, 111 from 64,322 for the same period in 2004.
