The Oklahoma City Airport Trust received an update July 24 on the trust's general aviation division and ongoing projects at Wiley Post and Clarence E. Page airports, including a completed runway widening at Wiley Post, drainage improvements, demolition of an aging Gulfstream complex and design work for a replacement control tower.

Director Mulder opened the director's report by highlighting the general aviation division and introducing staff: “I appreciate the time to be here today and highlight our division. I've got Brandon Norville, our field operations supervisor, and Chad Krueger, our, unit operations supervisor with me,” Christy Slater said when introduced during the presentation.

Staff said the general aviation division maintains roughly 2,500 acres across Wiley Post and Clarence E. Page, supports about 350 based aircraft at Wiley Post and roughly 70 at Clarence E. Page, and oversees about 70 businesses and four fixed-base operators between the two airfields. The presentation said Wiley Post flight operations are roughly 85,000 per year; a recent ADS-B tracker showed Clarence E. Page operations near 40,000 per year. The division, staff said, is 11 employees strong.

The trust heard that the west parallel runway at Wiley Post was widened to 100 feet and measures about 5,000 feet in length; staff said the work was completed and the runway reopened the day before the meeting. The project also temporarily closed an intersecting runway (transcript referenced Runway 13/31) during construction, and the reopening restores three available runways at Wiley Post, staff said.

Drainage improvements adjacent to Council Avenue were completed alongside the runway work; staff described a new large detention area installed to address historical flooding of parking lots and roads on the airport's east side. Staff said the drainage work addressed longstanding lack of drainage structures and was coordinated with the runway project.

Staff also reported demolition work has begun on a vacant complex historically used by Gulfstream. The complex had been vacant and vandalized, staff said, and demolition will remove unsafe structures and open the site for future redevelopment. Staff said demolition will begin with the larger buildings in the complex and that the total complex includes “probably 4 or 5 buildings total.”

On the control tower, staff said the FAA completed a siting study that identified a location just north of the existing tower. The design is near complete and trust staff said they are applying for FAA grant funds for the construction phase. Staff clarified ownership and operation: smaller airports commonly have contract towers owned by the airport; the airport would own the new tower facility and air traffic services would be provided by contracted air traffic service providers under FAA arrangements. When asked whether the tower would be federally owned, staff answered, “That's ours,” and later explained the employees would be contracted by an FAA air traffic service provider rather than FAA-employed controllers.

At Clarence E. Page, staff said a self-service avgas fueling system has been installed and that a taxi lane to the hangar area is being added; staff also said design is underway for additional box hangars in the northeast development area and that those hangars are a state cost-share project referenced in the presentation.

Staff closed by noting the projects are wrapping up and that trustees interested in touring Wiley Post could be accommodated.

No formal board action was required on the general aviation report; the report was presented for information and trustees did not take separate votes on the individual projects during the meeting.