A runway with 1,000-foot safety overrun areas at each end and 8,000 feet of pavement for takeoff space is needed, along with other improvements, to meet Charleston’s airfield needs for the next 20 years, according to the consulting firm preparing Yeager Airport’s master plan update.

Representatives from Cincinnati-based Landrum & Brown based the need for the improvements on a projected annual passenger growth rate of 2 percent, which would see Yeager Airport’s yearly passenger boardings increase from about 212,500 in 2017 to about 287,500 in 2027. That projection assumes Yeager would recapture direct flights to Orlando, Detroit and Dallas.

Other needs for the next 20 years identified in the report include installing an approach lighting system on the end of the runway nearest Charleston and an improved lighting system for the Coonskin Park end of the runway.

Since the Federal Aviation Administration is currently not willing to fund a runway longer than 7,000 feet at Charleston, Brown & Landrum is recommending moving forward with an interim plan that focuses on meeting existing needs with a 7,000-foot runway with 1,000-foot safety zones on each end.

Brown & Landrum representatives told those attending a meeting of Yeager Airport’s governing board on Wednesday that 32 alternatives had been considered for a long-range plan to build an 8,000 foot runway. The list has since been shortened to four, including two alternatives which would include no EMAS-equipped safety zones.

Yeager’s new EMAS bed at the rebuilt safety area at the Charleston end of the runway, commissioned last week, is scheduled for replacement after 20 years, under FAA guidelines. Since the only U.S. company now producing EMAS blocks has announced it will soon cease production, replacement materials are likely to be iffy during the next two decades, according to Brown & Landrum.

The recommended alternative for a short-term, 7,000-foot runway would be built in a way to accommodate an additional extension at a later date. It would require 17 million cubic yards of fill, the removal of 426,000 cubic yards of obstructions, and cost an estimated $168 million. Its runway would extend at least 500 feet into Coonskin Park.

Yeager Airport Director Terry Sayre said a number of regulatory and financing hurdles need to be cleared before the work recommended by the master plan could take place.

“We may be able to begin an environmental review next year,” he said, which could take two years to complete. “That would be followed by a year of design, with construction starting maybe three or four years down the road.”

Sayre told airport board members that recent completion of the EMAS bed at Yeager allowed the instrument landing system at that end of runway — out of commission for the past three years — to be restored, then tested and reactivated by the FAA.

Reach Rick Steelhammer

at [email protected], 304-348-5169 or follow

@rsteelhammer on Twitter.

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