Northwest Indiana airports fight aviation downturn

MUNSTER, Ind. (AP) - Airports across northwest Indiana are striving to secure and grow on-airfield businesses in an effort to fight a decades-long downturn in general aviation.

Data on takeoffs and landings from the Indiana Department of Transportation confirm local airport operators' observations, with annual numbers for all six northwest Indiana airports showing declines of varying magnitudes during the last 10 years.

The numbers between 2006 and 2015 range from a 57.4 percent decline at LaPorte Municipal Airport to a 2.4 percent decline at Griffith-Merrillville Airport, The Times of Northwest Indiana (http://bit.ly/2bJXVo3) reported.

Local operators say that the department's figures might not be completely accurate because some years were estimated. But they acknowledged they are fighting national trends, including a rapid drop in people acquiring and holding private pilot's licenses. The latter saw a 33.5 percent decline over 14 years, from more than 245,000 in 2002 to nearly 163,000 in 2015, according to the Federal Aviation Administration's U.S. Civil Airmen Statistics.

"Since the recession started, there has been a general downshift in pretty much everything in aviation, but we are starting to see an upturn in it," said Craig Anderson, general manager at Griffith-Merrillville Airport.

Michigan City Municipal Airport offers skydiving to help pay for costs, and Porter County Regional Airport is continuing a comprehensive plan that makes the airport a foundation for serving existing employers and attracting new ones to the community.

Griffith-Merrillville Airport relied on businesses like aerial advertising and training Chinese pilots to help pull it through the recession.

The county and city of Valparaiso are focusing much of their economic development activity on business and industrial parks around the airport.

"Our goal is to always be the aviation asset for our community's needs," said Kyle Kuebler, director of the Porter County Regional Airport. "And we want to be one of those check-marks for a company when they want to come into our community and have aviation

___

Information from: The Times, http://www.thetimesonline.com