Lifetime Citizen Portal Access — AI Briefings, Alerts & Unlimited Follows
Raleigh‑Durham airport says runway replacement was slowed by years of environmental review and preparatory demands
Loading...
Summary
Raleigh‑Durham Airport Authority told a House subcommittee that its primary runway replacement was delayed for years by preliminary FAA requirements and disagreements over environmental review scope, forcing costly temporary repairs and driving up project costs.
Raleigh‑Durham Airport Authority officials told the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Aviation that the agency has largely completed years of preparatory work for replacing its primary runway but was slowed by a long, front‑loaded environmental review process and repeated changes in scope.
Michael Langeth, president and CEO of the Raleigh‑Durham Airport Authority, said the project first surfaced in planning work in 2016. "Since identifying the need to replace our primary runway back in 2016, we spent over $30,000,000 on temporary repairs, replacing more than 300 concrete slabs with another $20,000,000 in fixes ahead of completion in 2029," Langeth said in his testimony.
Langeth told the subcommittee the process included an extended preliminary phase before the formal environmental clock started and that the FAA and the airport disagreed at times about whether to pursue an environmental assessment (EA) or an environmental impact statement (EIS). He described repeated requests for business justifications and forecasts that delayed the execution phase. "When we started the EA/EIS process... the FAA asked us to actually do a white paper on that, come up with a recommendation. Should it be an EA or EIS?" he said. Langeth said the preliminary work and a later change in the agency's approach together added several years to the timeline.
The result, he said, was more than routine maintenance: "What should have been a priority safety project will take nearly 13 years from initial planning to construction. That's too long." Langeth described maintenance steps the airport took while awaiting the permanent project, including repeated slab repairs and night closures, and estimated additional interim maintenance and repair costs in the tens of millions of dollars.
Lawmakers pressed Langeth on delays and asked what changes Congress or the FAA could make to speed critical projects. Langeth recommended clearer timelines for the preliminary phase — for example, a 30‑day deadline after a notice of intent to determine whether a project requires an EA or EIS — and urged Congress to include that sort of specificity when directing agency action in statutes.
The airport said it expects construction completion in 2029 and that without policy and process changes similar projects elsewhere could face similar multi‑year delays and higher costs.
