Future of Lake Tahoe Airport being devised
The future of Lake Tahoe Airport will be discussed Feb. 13 at 5:30pm at the South Lake Tahoe facility.
C&S Companies is developing, reviewing and creating an airport master plan to address the airport’s needs.
The meeting will include a presentation of the master plan process and a description of how the public can provide input on the airport’s future use. Following the presentation, attendees will have the opportunity to visit various stations focused on specific aspects of the master plan, and talk with city staff and the planning team.
When available, a draft of the Airport Master Plan will be online.
To the City Council,
When I read there was 1.2 million dollars of “extra” money in the city coffers, I jokingly wrote to LTN that you should hire a consulting firm to tell you how to spend the money after the firm took their cut.
I was JOKING!!! I was being ironic and poking a little fun at the city.
Another company brought in for a airport master plan? May I suggest you ask the local residents, pilots and the business community for their input first? Sometimes the best ideas come from the people that live and work here and they’re willing to offer up such ideas for free just to help our community.
I suggested the $1.2 mil go for road repair but I’ll bet that “extra” money will disappear real fast.
Old Long Skiis, consultant at large.
OLS what a concept, ask the constituents 1st! But the next step is to LISTEN to the voters not look for legal challenges to stop a vote when you did’nt listen. WE THE PEOPLE.
What is there to discuss? Another waste of money. Another unnecessary make-work project for city featherbedding bureaucrats. Repair the city streets instead.
Steve, the airport does exist. Therefore there has to be a strategic plan for operations for the long-term and tactical plans for the short-term. I also assume that it would be a really poor use of money to hire as a full-time employee someone who has depth in what is happening nationally with these types of assets. So instead just contract with someone who can do this.
Consultants should be used in cases where it doesn’t make sense to hire a full time employee.
OLS, exactly where did you get your airport management experience? Don’t have any? Why do you think your ideas are relevant?
Moral Hazard,
No, I have zero expeierence in airport management, although I did get a tour of the tower with my 5th grade Bijou Elementary class! (thank you, Art Muskovitz!) ,which hardly qualifies me as an expert!!! A great time, but it was a brief tour on a field trip.
So my ideas may be considered by some irrelevnt, but I would like to hear other folks thoughts from our area what they think might just work before we pay someone else what THEY think is best.
I just would like to see more local citizens involvement and less hiring of the so called “experts”. There are lots of intelligent people in this town and our neighboring communities that could offer alot of worthwhile ideas and plans.
City Council , listen to the residents of South Lake Tahoe. Hire Locally!!!! Respectfully, OLS
OLS you pay tax money to hire people to professionally manage the airport. Its complex because the FAA has what can at best be called byzantine regulations. So this whole thing is not about ideas. The City needs to get some answers about what is possible out there, then bring those details to the voters. Not the other way around. Frankly, I would like to see the airport sold for $1. But I don’t know a darned thing about it, so I will wait for the report and see whats going on at our airport and similar sized airports around the country.
you Guys are missing the point.
it is all about how to get commercial air service to our little Town.
the FAA will pay the City $ 1,000,000.00 per year if there is 1 flight a day
I was told this by the Lady who runs the Airport
then Hal and the Team will have more money to squander
Mr Roller here are two reasons we may never see commercial air service here on the South Shore:
1. Commercial airlines aren’t prone to servicing airports that won’t even come close to filling seats on their flights. (last two attempts at commercial service used as case in point)
2. Commercial jet noise issues and how it relates to TRPA noise regulations.
In my view the deregulation of the airlines in the 90’s was the final nail in SLT commercial air service coffin.
“In my view the deregulation of the airlines in the 90′s was the final nail in SLT commercial air service coffin.”
So, commercial airlines should be FORCED to fly to SLT, even if they’re guaranteed to lose money? Statist economics at its finest. . .
Having an airport here is certainly a benefit to the community from a safety and convenience standpoint. But nobody should be forced to use it unless they want to. This isn’t Soviet Russia. Yet.
Dog, project much? I was just stating an observation (and a factual one at that!), not opining about returning to regulation.
The airport is a regional asset, but is subsidized by the poor suckers of South Lake Tahoe. City residents are going pay again for yet another study. The airport was important during the Angora fire; those county residents didn’t help subsidize it. The casinos use it to bring in their high-rollers; they do not contribute to it. The city should not continue to bear the burden by itself. El Dorado County and Nevada residents who benefit from the airport should step up and pay for it.
To the good folks of Meyers and Christmas Valley,
Don’t let happen to you what happened, and still is happening, to the city of South Lake Tahoe.
Someone or a large corporation comes up with a plan for development and or expansion in an area were there’s land available, either open space or it can be taken through eminent domain if occupied, and they have lots of money and political pull, it WILL happen. Next comes hiring a firm, company, or whatever they want to call themselves, to write up a plan or proposal that will benefit those that paid for the study, review, plan, proposal(all words being interchangeable) and that puts the wheels in motion.
The public may not want it but these so called “improvements” happen anyway. Public outcry is good but often ignored by the powers that be.
The examples on So. Shore are everywhere. A lot of people opposed re development and we got stuck with a huge bill and the hole (but hey, they’re putting a row of retail shops on 50. Oh you mean like the ones that were there before? yep!) A proposed loop road with a study funded by those who stand the most to gain while many lose there homes to eminent domain and local businesses lose customers. Paid parking? Most folks didn’t want it but we got it anyway because an outside firm said it would be profitable for the city, despite what the locals said. Now a master plan for the airport from another company will be presented next month. It’s a sure bet it will be approved.
So watch out Meyers, they’e comin’ to getchya!!!
Old Long Skiis
If what City Resident says is true, that the airport is subsidized, why not privatize it? This is done with toll roads, parking lots, and even airports all around the country. Why is the city of Tahoe even in the airport business at all?
Tahoe does suffer without direct air service by an airline. I was asked by my company to find a location in Northern Cal/Nevada area for a sales and operations meeting attended by 350 people. Being a local I suggested SLT with so many sights and activities plus good accommodations and meeting areas.
My company did not like that people had to fly across the country and still take a 1-1/2 hour ride from Reno to SLT. We held the meeting in San Diego and when the total cost of the meeting was added we put $550,000 into the economy of San Diego. SLT losses all that and dozens of others since there is no direct service by an airline into the airport that is already there.
You figure it out why this town is in the economic shape it is in.
Rhino, lets think about this a bit. You have people in you company all over the nation. You want to fly them into Tahoe. So what we need is not just commercial service, but service to all of the major hubs in the country. For 350 people, that is at least 5 flights a day, from major hubs. If not that, then everyone has to fly into the single hub and wait for THE flight.
How is that supposed to happen?
“Dog, project much? I was just stating an observation (and a factual one at that!), not opining about returning to regulation.”
Level, don’t worry. That is just what Dawg does. ‘Puts words in your mouth’, straw man logical fallacies, and takes things out of context.
Dawg: Seem I am not the only one who calls you out for doing that. Knock it off.
Over the years I’ve seen many small airlines come and go here and usually after just a short time they leave for good. Just not enough demand equals to too few passengers to make it profitable. It would be cool if someone could make it work but past history says it’s highly doubtful.
I live close to the flight path and the air traffic doesn’t bother me so I wouldn’t mind a midsized commercial plane a few times or more a day. The thing is,so far no ones been able to make it work.
Maybe this new master plan has some magical answer to bring in a commercial carrier. We shall see. OLS
Restoring commercial service to the airport is a worth while goal, however it is just one aspect of a larger plan. We need a convention facility, not on the Las Vegas size but able to handle meeting of 500 to 3500. There are hundreds of groups that would love to come here if we had a facility, and air service. We need a visitors and parking facility at Meyers with a light rail to bring visitors to the center of town. The Heavenly Gondola has demonstrated the value of a no driving option to ski. Imagine a family arrives by car, parks in a covered facility, tours a visitors center combined with a wild life center, steps on to the light rail and is deposited at their hotel. A convention visitor gets off his or her air plane and takes the same light rail. Not only to we handle the volume with out traffic, but we create an experience that people will talk about, and word of moth is our best promotion.
There’s two sides to this story. First of all, air service into Reno is horrible. Add the drive to Tahoe from Reno and it’s worse than horrible to get here by air.
On the other hand, airlines are consolidating nationwide. So why would any airline fly into Tahoe?
Aspen has a very successful airport. That airport is really well maintained.
Has anyone commenting on this matter been to the airport and personally seen the condition it is in? No airline will come into this airport with the terminal building in the condition it’s in. Beyond the terminal building, look at the asphalt – it looks like gravel.
Without investment in the airport by the airport itself, you can forget about air service ever coming back here.
I don’t know the answers, just throwing out some facts here.
Moral,
I am not sure how it will happen but at least if one airline flew in from LA or SF there are many directs to those airports. It is the key sayers like you that will always kill progress and you will be the first to complain.
Places like Aspen, Mammoth and Sun Valley do it why can’t South Lake Tahoe?
The airport is funded by a good portion of our taxes yet benefits the few at Stateline. Think: Casinos, Edgewood (who is expanding), and Vail. Some of the highest use is for the Celebrity Golf Tournaments – at Edgewood. Just paying for it as it is now wastes public money. If one counts the environmental impacts – like water quality runoff – and the tax dollars we’re spending on “restoration projects” to (supposedly) remove this water pollution, the airport is costing the public even more. Commercial service is not economically viable, period. They’ve paid who-knows-how-many consultants to look over the last 20 years and the result is the same. TRPA’s noise regulations have nothing to do with this. Add to that the TRPA has left the enforcement business (at least for large entities like the City). Regardless, it’s always been an easy scapegoat to blame TRPA regulations but it’s all about economics, and those top few who benefit don’t want to lose their nice, tax-payer subsidized profits.
If readers are not ok with this set-up, then please go to the meeting and speak your mind. The more, the better.
Get informed. The Airport is Federally funded.
Look up Airport Improvement Program Grant Funding. One can find ALL the money funneled into KTVL publicly available on the internet.
KTVL has received over $10 million in the last decade for airport improvements, noise monitoring and abatement, and more.
That means locals are paying as much for the airport as the rest of the country.
Commercial and Scheduled are two different types of airline activity. KTVL holds a Part 139 certification for unscheduled large aircraft. Snow removal from the runways (understaffed, equipment breakage) is the major hurdle to Commercial OR Scheduled air services coming to Tahoe.
The goal that KTVL needs to accomplish is to become self-sufficient, and benefit the economy by enhancing the accessibility of our tourist based town. Talks should focus to that end.
Yep, they pay 80%, 90% or 100% of a project then were stuck with the operations and maintenance forever.
Big Picture: Let’s get informed.
The county “sold” the airport to the city for $1 in about 1980. Since then it has run a deficit nearly every year. The only reason it now appears somewhat cost neutral is because our city uses it as a city hall.
For years the deficit it was in the $300,00-$600,00 range, and, as I recall, it was over $1,000,000 in the year that the city put up $600,000 just to buy plane seats so a commercial carrier would fly here. Six months later, when the money was gone, so was the carrier. As Lou Perini notes, the City of South Lake Tahoe pays matching funds for everything we get from the federal government. We pay all the day-to-day operating costs. No one from the county pays a cent, neither does anyone from the Nevada side. They benefit as much, or more, than any city resident.
If instead of pouring money into the airport, imagine the wages we could have paid to our police or firemen. We could have paved streets and installed sidewalks. Instead, airport boosters continue to dream that, if only the TRPA would get out of the way, we could have regular commercial service. It’s not going to happen. Deregulation changed the economics of the airline industry and commercial carriers no longer can make a profit at airports such as ours.
Let’s sell the airport back to El Dorado County, or to Douglas County, and let the airport boosters who live there pay for it.
BIG PIC. The City kicks and has kicked $400,000 per year into the so-called “airport” for the past 15 years or so; $6 million give or take. The entire facility needs to be demolished. The Federal Tower has been shut down for years now. The last so-called airline that tried to make a go of it was Allegiant Air and even it folded before the end of summer in 2000 AFTER the Lodging Association kicked in about $80,000 in direct subsidies. The only people making money on the “airport” are the same people that dust off these “studies” every year or two and say the same things they have been saying for years; spend more money on the airport. Air service at South Lake Tahoe is dead.
I bet a former mayor and current city councilman who has a hanger there (but no plane) would not like it demolished. Where else can one store their antique cars so conveniently and economically. No wonder he always leads the charge to keep paying for this albatross.
I find it interesting that with all the comments indicating that the airport is subsidized, nobody spare myself has gotten behind privatizing the airport.
What’s more interesting is that nobody has made the argument that our roads are subsidized. Our roads must be in the red when you consider maintenance, police, and snow removal.
What road maintenance? My son cant even ride his skateboard down our street without fear of getting stuck in a two inch rut. Our tax dollars are supposto help with road maintenance so I guess that is a subsidy. Id much rather have our street fixed than keep the airport up for the occasional gazillionair flying in to spend the day at the lake. Why cant they pay for the use of the airport? The only reason the airport should stay open is for emergency and fire use in my opinion. Stop spending tax dollars on this failing airport.
Hey AB! Selling the “airport” to the Washoe Tribe for Indian gaming, or privatizing, was mentioned over a decade ago to the City Council and rejected.