Aspen’s great airport debate

This November, Pitkin County voters will consider two ballot questions on the future of the Aspen-Pitkin County Airport. 

Question 200 asks voters whether or not to amend the Home Rule Charter, the county’s governing document, to divest the Pitkin County Board of Commissioners from its authority to expand or relocate the runway from its Jan. 1, 2024, status without voter approval. 

It is the product of Our Airport Our Vote, an issues committee that collected signatures to get the question on the ballot. If passed, it would force a second vote on the future of the runway.

Question 1C asks voters to “reaffirm” the commissioners’ authority to approve and implement a runway layout, plus other airport decisions, via another Home Rule Charter amendment. The commissioners put forth the question, and it’s being supported by the issues committee A Whole Lot of People for a Better Airport. 

If both pass, the county has said that 1C would supersede 200 because of its language. Both sides are preparing for a legal fight should that happen.

Local airport stakeholders sparred over the Airport Layout Plan, wingspans, decarbonization and more at a Friday evening town-hall forum hosted by Aspen Daily News and Aspen Public Radio at the Wheeler Opera House. 

Pitkin County, as the airport’s sponsor, and the airport are updating the Airport Layout Plan, or ALP, with the Federal Aviation Administration. An ALP outlines design parameters for the airport facilities and is crucial in directing federal funding to the airport. 

The FAA requires that airports have an accepted ALP on file at all times. Without one, they are in violation of grant assurances, or the legal obligations in perpetuity when accepting federal funds. As of May, the FAA said the Aspen airport has accepted more than $116 million in FAA funds since 1982. 

At the center of local debate is what’s called a “modification of standard” which allows the airport to have a narrower separation between its runway and taxiway than the standard for design group III airports. Another issue is the widening of the runway itself to accommodate aircraft with larger wingspans and, according to expansion proponents, to improve safety.

Currently, the centerline separation is 320 feet between the taxiway and runway. The standard for ADG III airports is 400 feet. With the “mod,” aircraft are limited to a 95-foot wingspan. The standard for Class III is up to 118 feet. 

Critics say widening the runway would allow access to bigger aircraft that are dirtier and noisier and that the airport can pay for its own repairs. Supporters say it’s a necessary tradeoff to maintain access to untold amounts of federal funding to reconstruct the runway and terminal with climate-friendly infrastructure.

The mod was originally granted in 1999 by the FAA at the behest of the county, according to the airport’s website. In the 2014 ALP update process, the FAA made it clear they would no longer accept an ALP with that mod. 

Ultimately, the county pulled back from the process to allow time for the ASE Vision process of 2019-20, in which more than 120 citizens signed up for committees that met for over a year. The result was the “Common Ground Recommendations,” which outline goals for the airport on climate, gate flexibility, ideal aircraft and more for a new ALP. It includes a wider runway and a greater taxiway-runway separation. It also seeks to relocate the runway a short distance to the west.

The ASE Vision process drew controversy from slow-growth advocates who felt their views were not being considered. Many stopped attending committee meetings because they felt consultants of the county were steering the endeavor toward a goal the county favored.

Jacquelyn Francis is the chair of the Airport Advisory Board, the volunteer community board that gives recommendations to the county commissioners on airport-related issues and decisions. 

She said that the FAA has focused on this mod as a matter of standardizing airports across design groups as a matter of safety.

“The FAA is very, very focused on safety and accessibility, and having a wider runway gives basically shoulders to the runway, which allows for a little more width,” she said at the town-hall forum. “We’ve tried to give them an Airport Layout Plan that doesn’t have this separation and the width requirement, and they have said absolutely not.”

Amory Lovins disagreed with Francis’ assertion that it’s a mandate from the FAA. Lovins is the president of Aspen Fly Right, a local 501(c)(3) that puts forth educational material related to the airport.

“It’s not actually a safety issue, because they calculated the 95-foot wingspan limit to be just as safe with the planes that fly here with the separation we have as the 400 foot full separation would be with the wider 118-foot wingspans,” he said. “That’s called equivalent safety. The county has been unable to identify any safety issue with the airport.

In an April 2023 meeting between county commissioners, the airport advisory board and John Bauer, manager of the Denver Airports District Office of the Federal Aviation Administration, Bauer said the runway could stay the same and only discretionary funds would be at risk — discretionary funds can run significantly higher than $2.3 million annually in entitlement funds. 

“Could Aspen maintain the 320-foot runway type? Yes, you can, but again, we then go into kind of an entitlement-only situation,” he said at the April 2023 meeting.  

In a May 2024 email exchange between the county and Bauer, Bauer said the FAA will not approve an ALP that doesn’t include the 400-foot standard separation. He also said the FAA would terminate the mod, putting the airport in uncharted territory: without an approved ALP. 

“If ASE chooses to reconstruct the runway in its current location, the (modification of standard) will be terminated, and the County will no longer have an approved ALP,” Bauer wrote in the May email. “Under statute, without an approved ALP, the FAA cannot provide funding to the County for airport improvements or maintenance.”

At Friday’s town-hall forum, Lovins pointed out that the FAA does not allow “unjust” discrimination of access at the airport, and contends that the 320-foot mod is just. 

For Lovins, moving ahead without FAA funding is possible. In Aspen Fly Right’s Essay No. 17, his group lays out a case for using revenue from the Fixed Base Operator to fund airport improvements. The county is close to inking a $879 million 30-year contract with Atlantic Aviation to remain as FBO. 

“We’ve done a financial study that just withstood the county’s fifth effort to demolish it, showing that you don’t need the grants because the county is about to ink a billion dollar deal on the FBO, and that’s more than you need to finance everything we need,” Lovins said. 

Aspen Fly Right’s conclusion of $403 million to $620 million in airport and county bonds would suffice in financing a different airport renovation plan, he said.

The county hired Piper Sandler, a multinational investment bank that also offers financial services, to analyze bonding capability from that contract. They concluded an approximate $80 million to $102 million bonding capability that the county may not be able to absorb with other county funds. 

“We’ve also been told that the FAA has never been in the situation where a community has chosen such a reckless and kind of risky route to not go with an Airport Layout Plan,” Francis said.

To which Lovins replied, “We suggested, basically, that we put the burden on the FAA to say, ‘Do you really want to handicap our airport to enforce a bureaucratic standardization in which you have complete discretion?’ After all, we have 85 modifications of standard.”

Lovins also said he found that the aviation demand forecast and fleet mix, a document that predicted traffic and activity at the airport for the next 20 years, to be flawed. The fleet mix is a part of the ALP which was approved by the AAB and the commissioners and sent to the FAA last year. 

More divergence on issues

In response to a question about his time with the ASE Vision process, panelist Torre called into question the integrity of the process. Torre is a member of Our Airport Our Vote and represented the group at the town hall. He also is Aspen’s mayor, serving his third term. He was not representing city government at Friday’s event.

“I will tell you that I was in the room and I was on [one of the Vision committees] and participating when the consultant team that was brought in for that was taken off of that, my understanding was that perhaps the results weren’t being garnered that were being looked for,” he said.

Michael Miracle, a representative from A Whole Lot of People for a Better Airport, defended the Vision process. He said he sat on the community character working group and saw very little attrition. Miracle works for Aspen Skiing Co. as its community engagement director.

“This process of making a decision at the county commissioner table was more informed by the public than any decision made at a city council table or a county commissioner table ever,” he said. “It was 16 months of 100 people rolling up their sleeves, working really hard to put forth a recommendation that I think is excellent.” 

Both sides conceded that there is much they agree on about the future of the airport, including the need to reconstruct the runway and the importance of prioritizing electrification and climate-friendly infrastructure. Whether wider-wingspan planes must be allowed access to the airport to meet the goals is where they diverge.

Lovins said general aviation is of particular concern to him. Private planes make up the overwhelming majority of air traffic at the airport.

“I’m particularly concerned with the risk that once you open up to big planes, you end up having to accept anything that can fit, and that includes 737s, A-319s, A-320s,” he said. “There are many, many hundreds of them in private ownership. Many of those owners would love to come here.”

Francis said she thinks the risk of older private jets is overhyped and that she sees aviation trending toward wider wingspans.

“I think the new planes that could come in with wider wingspans are mostly going to be quieter and they will also be less polluting, so that’s something that seems like a very positive effect for our community,” she said. “In the future, if there’s hybrid electric [aircraft] we’re going to need electric infrastructure. That’s something we need to do with this FAA money, and I think the future of lighter aviation will have wider wing spans.”

Torre suggested most in the community don’t want to see bigger planes.

“I am here mostly to represent our right to vote on this as an issue. That’s primarily what I’m here to say is that we deserve as a community to be in charge of our future,” he said. “I don’t remember anybody coming out of the [Vision process] going, you know, what we need is bigger planes. This came back to us from the FAA. This was not the community’s intention through the [ASE Vision process].”

The Common Ground Recommendations recommend the Airbus 220-100 as the ideal aircraft for the airport. It’s a 109-seat, 115-foot aircraft.

SkyWest, the regional operator for airlines at the airport, confirmed this year that it will begin flying Embraer 175s to Aspen this winter through its service with United Airlines. The E-175s are viewed as a temporary replacement for the aging CRJ-700s employed by commercial carriers serving Aspen. They fit within the current wingspan limitation.

Torre flagged the revelation as proof that commercial service is not in danger at the airport, a scenario that many pro-widening officials warned could happen. 

“I think it’s a myth buster, right? The E-175 came in. We were told for years that Aspen’s going to lose commercial service because airlines are retiring 95-foot wingspan planes. Not true,” he said. “Our primary carriers are switching to that.”

Miracle said the E-175 aircraft falls short of climate goals. According to county consultant Jacobsen Daniels, the E-175 measures worse on noise emissions than the CRJ-700 but is slightly better on emissions per passenger. It has one more passenger seat than the CRJ-700.

“It’s a viable replacement that is newer, which is positive. It is no cleaner or quieter, it has the same number of passengers,” he said. “In terms of emissions goals, it does not move the needle positively, but it’s a viable replacement for the CRJ-700 — and it’s proof that that plane was ready to retire.”

Miracle also stressed the importance of bed base as a growth determinant in the community, not aircraft size, in reference to a comment Torre made about potential for increased flight schedules. 

“The governor for tourist capacity in this community is bed base. This is well understood. Amory has dug in enough to say that there’s a 98% correlation,” he said. “The big planes flying direct from somewhere else, they have to be replaced because the capacity is not there for people to show up.”

Lovins routinely calls into question or outright assails the validity of county consultant conclusions through Aspen Fly Right essays. Some community members submitted questions to Aspen Public Radio to ask why they should trust Aspen Fly Right conclusions more than that of the FAA, large consultant firms or the county.

“The county has been pursuing this agenda for a dozen years, and of course, gets to choose its consultants. The consultants know what answer is desired. The consultants desire county business. I’ve been a consultant for about 50 or 60 years, and there’s an old adage ‘whose bread I eat, his song I sing,’” he said. “That’s not the way I do consulting, but I’m not sure everybody else does it the same way.”

He also stressed Aspen Fly Right’s “rigorous” research which it outlines in their essays. He said the county “conceals” its products, although most government documents may be obtained through a public records request. 

“I think that that is an opinion, and I don’t think it’s a correct opinion,” Francis said. “We have done a lot of work with a lot of different organizations, and I find that to be insulting for the work we’ve done, the work the AAB has done, and also the work that the county commissioners and all the experts have done.”

The election

If Question 200 passes, Miracle said its effect would be a slingshot into the past, reopening the ASE Vision process and restarting the clock on rounds and rounds of community conversations.

“They would very likely do the same thing that just happened, which is pull a group of citizens together who can commit time to learning about the issue, bring in experts to learn about the issue, try as hard as [they] can to achieve the best thing … to see what the FAA says about it, negotiate with them,” he said. “That all just happened.”

Torre said the intention of ballot question 200 is to support the commissioners, not strip them of power. 

“The intention of the ballot questions is not to take power away from the county commissioners. The intention of the ballot questions is to support the county commissioners,” he said. “What we have heard from the county commissioners is that they went to the FAA, they explained our situation, they made their ask, and they were rebuffed and turned away by the FAA, saying, ‘You will accept larger planes if you want any of our funding.’”

Miracle took issue with that characterization, framing safety and standardization as the FAA’s motivators.

“A wider runway is safer. There’s a letter from 40 pilots in the paper yesterday or today saying this is why to do it,” Miracle said. “The FAA has said over and over again that this is about safety. They could not be clearer about this. Framing it as bigger planes are being shoved down our throats is an inaccurate representation of the FAA stance and the community’s motivations for doing it.”

Torre then said a recent newspaper advertisement in the form of a letter in support of ballot question 1C included a number of pilots whom he suspected are not Pitkin County voters, even if they do regularly fly through the Aspen airport. 

“Unfortunately, out of that group of 30-something airline pilots, 60% of them are not local,” he said. “They do not vote in Pitkin County. They are not registered here. So it was touted in the paper as local pilots giving their input, but I’m sorry, a majority of those are not local pilots.”

Closing statements

In their closing statements, each panelist stressed their perspective. 

“The future does not need wider wingspans, nor a redesigned runway. Now, the BOCC is set to sign an FBO deal whose $879 million expected fees could more than finance all airport needs — less than half that with no FAA grants,” Lovins said.”It would be paid for mainly by the private planes that caused most of the impacts. Regaining financial independence begins our escape from ratcheting of federal overregulation, enabling more crowding, noise pollution, traffic and housing scarcity, eroding our economic foundations and our quality of life.”

“I think what Amory is talking about is kind of foolish thinking. I think it’s reckless and irresponsible, and I think that we have a really good Airport Layout Plan that we could move forward with and get millions and millions of dollars of funding for that we as taxpayers won’t be on the hook for,” Francis said. “I really think that widening the runway is not going to be some kind of dystopia, and I think we can move forward and really have a wonderful situation with a better airport, and that we can make that happen and come together as a community on this.”

“We should be allowed to vote for the best direction for our valley,” Torre said. “More larger planes do nothing to help, and instead, adding the next-size-up aircraft will incrementally destroy the quality of life and quality of experience in this valley … I suggest voting yes on 200 and no on 1C for your rights to vote.”

“Our airport is failing both the terminal and the runway. It has not been updated since the 1980s FAA funding for the airport has been cut off. We’ve spent more than $7 million this year for repairs the FAA would have paid for, and that number will only grow every year until we show the FAA, we’re committed to building an airport that meets their standards,” Miracle said. “The only financing model that works is one that accepts money from the FAA. Do not be fooled by arguments that we can pay for this for ourselves. We can’t. But why would we want to? … There is widespread support for supporting 1C and a no to Question 200.”

The grant assurances taken on by the airport and county since the 1960s with the acceptance of federal funds include one that could put the county in legal uncharted territory with the FAA if question 200 passes.

“The airport sponsor will not take or permit any action which would deprive it of any of the rights and powers necessary to perform any or all of the terms, conditions, and assurances in this Grant Agreement,” it says.

Pitkin County voters will face a major choice on the airport in the Nov. 5 ballot. Voter registration information can be checked at the Colorado Secretary of State’s website.

Listen to the full town-hall conversation at aspenpublicradio.org.