Critic says third airport could be fiasco

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The proposed South Suburban Airport would be built on the open land in the background. | File photo

Updated: February 18, 2012 8:11AM

A Colorado aviation consultant is predicting that the proposed South Suburban Airport near Peotone could end up losing money.

His prediction follows one last week by Will County officials that 2012 will be the year the long-planned project finally takes off.

Aviation consultant Michael Boyd told The (Bloomington) Pantagraph for a Monday story that the airport could find itself in a situation similar to MidAmerica St. Louis Airport in southwestern Illinois.

MidAmerica has struggled since opening with great fanfare in 1998. It continues to lose money, posting roughly $12 million in red ink in 2010, according to an audit last year. Critics persistently have labeled it a $330 million boondoggle, and its officials have had to work hard to lure and keep cargo business.

“You’ve already got one major fiasco called MidAmerica. Don’t do it again,” Boyd said. “MidAmerica is a monument to dishonest planning.”

Boyd told The Associated Press on Monday that he had no direct ties to either opponents or supporters of a third Chicago-area airport, adding that he based his comments on more than a decade of closely following the project as an analyst.

Illinois has spent $33 million for the South Suburban Airport to purchase more than 2,000 acres, and the site is expected to require more than 5,000 acres. Gov. Pat Quinn wants to spend another $110 million to buy land. Construction would require millions more.

Quinn and other supporters say the project will pay off both financially and by providing needed relief for air traffic at O’Hare International and Midway airports.

“We firmly believe the South Suburban Airport will benefit the people of Illinois and provide much-needed infrastructure, jobs and potential for economic growth,” Illinois Department of Transportation spokesman Guy Tridgell said in an email.

But Illinois has seen a drop of more than 10 percent in the number of people flying in and out of its nine main airports during the past five years. Key Chicago carrier American Airlines’ parent company, AMR Corp., filed for bankruptcy protection last year.

And Southwest Airlines has announced it’s pulling flights by subsidiary AirTran from the Quad-City International Airport in Moline and the Central Illinois Regional Airport in Bloomington.

Still, Will County’s top economic development official said the airport plans could be poised to move forward after decades of debate and years of political squabbling. The prediction was No. 1 on a Top 10 list by John Greuling, chief executive and president of the Will County Center for Economic Development, at the group’s 2012 Economic Forecast luncheon. Will County Executive Larry Walsh agreed with Greuling’s forecast.

County officials have wrangled with U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-2nd) for years over how the airport should be governed, but Walsh thinks that can be decided soon.

“I think 2012 is going to bring us some closure in regards to the issue of (airport) governance — absolutely,” he said.

The Federal Aviation Administration won’t decide whether to approve the proposed airport until the governance plan is in place, Walsh said. He said it appears there may be some compromise in the works, but he wouldn’t elaborate.

He said he hopes legislation that gives Will County and its communities majority representation on the airport governing board will come out of the spring legislative session.

Without some agreement in place, Greuling said he fears that IDOT and the FAA will drop the airport project.

Contributing: Cindy Wojdyla Cain