Airport Commission - Noise Abatement Subcommittee - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the March meeting of the Dayton County Regional Airport Commission. Item number one on the agenda is call the meeting to order. Begin with roll call.

Letter member Burris. Westmanship. Berman. Present. Ilstra. Present. Froning. Here. McCarvel. Rylander.

Under here.

Thomas. Beldron.

Pretty good. Alright. Next item, pledge of allegiance. Pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America, to the republic on which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much. Alright. Item b, consideration of minutes, twenty twenty five minutes, six one six minutes from the February 18 Airport Commission meeting. Is there a motion? Is there motion? You, supervisor. Is there a second? Thank you, supervisor. Is there any discussion? Alright. Hearing none, there's a motion and a second on the floor.

All those in favor, say aye. Opposed, nay. And the ayes have it. Item c is report of the subcommittees, which we will I mean, I'll just use this time to announce. We are excited to have the arts committee invite everyone to a reception to celebrate the new exhibit in the gallery just down the hall, ready to wear Madison, which is a great fundraiser, an organ part of the Madison reading project, not fundraiser here, be very clear.

But one of their fundraisers is ready to wear. They have amazing art done in paper, and they brought those gowns and outfits here to our art gallery. And it's been up now probably two months or so ish. We're probably gonna have the reception. So we welcome all of you on Tuesday, April 7, from five to 7PM right here at the Art Court just down the hallway between Doors 3 And 4. So, again, I hope you can join us April 7, five to 7PM. We'll send out information to Erin.

Also, just wanna remind you last.

Oh. Well, knew I was busy, but I'll make it.

Okay. Well well, good point. We'll we'll be in touch. We'll say we'll put it down. Yes.

One oh, I'm sorry. One quick pause. Ellie Weisman Chin does not have the link. Can you resend it to her?

Thank you for supervisor development response. Okay. Perfect.

Alright. Well, so much for that announcement. Okay. So items d items d, referrals, resolutions, ordinance, amendments. Item number one twenty twenty five, ordinance amendment zero two nine, amending chapter 15 of the Dade County code of ordinances regarding the Air Court Commission. Is there a motion? No. No. You, supervisor. Is there a second? Supervisor, is there an update from the staff? And who are the sponsor? I see. So

I had an opportunity to talk to the county executive, and

I'm gonna talk to Mark.

Jason a little bit about my desire was to get the city of Madison, alder that represents the airport, more more involved in communication and what's going on here. And so this proposal adds two additional members to this committee, this commission. And one of them is that that alder, some backups in case that alder doesn't want you to serve, and then just a resident of Dane County, so as the second person. So that opens up the ability to not be defined with all

the weird stuff that's currently

in the ordinance about the and just another representative. The idea behind that is also there's so much going on with the airport that'd be good to have, you know, consistency on the post office as elected officials that may only be here for two years, etcetera. And so, yeah, that's that's that's the idea behind this. Happy to answer questions and then staff that I'm looking to get off that's boss and.

No. I got nothing to add. You know, I I think you hit on the high points. Right? So we're at the beginning parts of a master plan. Consistency is gonna be key, making sure that that we have that that tenure because, yeah, it is tough to digest. I feel like you just become an airport champion at the end of two years, and then you start to understand the nuances of of an airport. So to see that seat rotate out by subtracting, which was would be the other alternative option. Right? I I adding one more to have that consistency in that that tenured shift. But, yeah, I'm excited about getting the city. They if we've had more and more communication with them over the last eight months, so this is just another avenue in the right direction.

I think it's very important to note too that elder Matthew, who is the current seat, which is District 12, does serve on our noise abatement subcommittee already. So let's sort of be able to jump pretty quickly. Questions for the sponsor? So thankful it's here today. Well, both sponsors are here today.

Alright. Here another. There's a a motion second on the floor. Is there any discussion amongst the committee? Hearing none, motion second on the floor for ordinance amendment zero to nine. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Alright. The ayes have. Thank you very much, supervisor. Look forward to having some more friends. Alright. Item number two, twenty twenty five, resolution three nine seven, authorize execution of an air service promotion and marketing agreement for American Airlines, Dade County Regional Airport. Is there a motion?

No. Thank you. Second? Second. Thank you, supervisors. We have a motion and a second.

Yeah. I'll actually let Tom speak about this one. Tom. So

American Airlines, as you all well know, have announced that they will be starting Boston flights. And with that, they are taking advantage of our community air service support program, which we offer to any airline serving the current or current currently serving the airport and or new airlines entering into the market. So the American will be eligible to receive up to $150,000 in marketing and promotional assistance as well as waiving of land fees for two years as part of that CAS program.

The only other thing I'll add is you may recall Delta Airlines is also flying to Boston and is qualified for the same route. However, this promotion, the agreement in front of you that you have today is only American Airlines. Delta is still deciding whether or not they wanna sign it. Not because they don't want the $150,000, but it does come with a two year period of performance. If for any reason they were to pull back from that that meeting the criteria, they would have to refund us essentially the marketing dollars that we spent. So they're still deciding. It's my point.

So who who actually does the advertising? So

once you sign the agreement, then it kinda be a a mix of both, and it is called out between that is that marketing dollar spent here in Madison? There's a portion of it that gets spent in Boston as well, you have that that both way flow. Each airline is different on how they wanna handle it. Some would rather the airline do it because then they have the consistency with branding, image, and control, and it's less work. Other airlines want the airport to do it because they don't have specific staff to do it, or they don't know the market as well as we do. So it's it's a mix. I won't say it's a cookie cutter approach each one. It is definitely a conversation each time these come up. And do you know how

this particular one's gonna work out? Or

It's still in discussion. Yeah. We'll we'll leverage our existing if I had to guess, it'll be a mix of of both. We won't do Boston. I know that. So they'll be up the airline to do that, if that makes sense. Whether or not they pass that through to their Boston team, the discussion, but it'll be

a mix. You. Thank you, supervisor. Other questions?

K. Yes. Please, supervisor. I'm sure other airports have previous.

So if I'm getting the question right, like, getting this route on the opposite side, Us being the unique position of Madison, we're not usually the destination, if if that makes sense. Boston, I don't think was going out and lobbying American Airlines to start direct service to Madison. So we're very important, but I don't think they can I

mean, let's just stay there? Yeah.

So let's just call it so it's it's not as common. Goals. Yeah. It's good to have goals. Right? So it no. And if that does happen, lot of times, they'll just put it into whatever system that they already do from their national marketing team. So

It is a good question. One day one

day, maybe. Right? One day So

can we have that help these customers?

Yes. Ally, you're tasked with with people wanting to fly to us. Yeah.

And we've already reached out to our counterparts in Boston about doing some sort of co promotion on both ends. So we're in discussion with them now on that. We don't wanna really start doing anything until everything you know, one, the flights get in the air, and then two, depending on, you know, what the airport, how this $150,000 is handled. Because if depending on what everybody else is gonna do, if we all did it together, it's gonna give us a bigger bang for our buck.

Other questions? I think we've also just moved into discussion. Should we get further questions and or discussion on resolution of March?

I think Bell run has a.

Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. Thank you. Oh, Ellie, you have a question. I'm sorry. Ellie as well.

He's done, I think.

Oh, okay. Sorry about that.

Thanks. What sorry. What was the first question? I it was hard to hear that.

Which referring back to which section?

This this section. There was a question. I think it was Who was the room. I just couldn't hear you. Was hard to hear.

Going to advertise, I think, was my question. Like

Yeah. I I think the initial question was whether or not it was gonna be American Airlines doing it over the year or and we had still decide we're still in the works of deciding and breaking that out. I believe, if I'm not mistaken, Thomas, it's 75%, 25%.

For yeah. That's for at Madison, 75% is

Of the promotion?

Yes.

25.

Is this do we have we done this for other flights, no stops?

We have. It's just been a long time.

I think 2018 is the biggest one.

Is it just that this is a

more Yeah. Sounds like San Francisco is the last one in 2018. They haven't heard of.

Okay. Alright.

Thanks. Other further questions, supervisor. Are there more questions and or discussion?

Love that airport sound.

Alright. We do have a first and a second motions on resolution twenty twenty five, three ninety seven authorizing execution of the air service promotion and bargaining agreement for American Airlines, Dayton County Regional Airport. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, nay. All right. The ayes have it. Alright. Moving on to item e, items requiring committee action. I don't see anything. Okay. What? Didn't you didn't do any motions. Okay. Good. Yeah. We're both blinded. Item f is presentations. Alright. Item g, reports to the committee. We've got executive directors

updates. Yeah.

Happy March.

Happy March.

Alright. We'll go through our quick air service update. This will be pretty brief because we're only gonna show you January. Don't get alarms. We're flat. So that's okay for January. January is typically a very slow month in the air service market industry, especially in the Midwest climates. So flat on our record breaking year is a okay with us. That means the airlines have held in the past. They haven't dropped anything. They've seen healthy load factors. So this is not a scary thing, but it's only January. I will tell you that it won't stay that long or like that for long. What you see here is the continued load factor trends. You will always see that dip in during our slow time of January, February.

Expect that kind of seasonality to to be there. But what you see here is the capacity continues to increase, and that's really the the big thing. If airlines are continuing to have strength in the market and having confidence in the market and having confidence that the passengers will continue to rise, and that's what you see here on this

this part. Quick question there. We're gonna have a significant further increase in capacity coming this summer too. Correct?

Correct. You know, very much so. Speaking of some of that forecasted service, American Airlines was Washington DC service. So the frequency was originally programmed to be reduced back down to two, and they are looking to keep that their daily all the way August through October. So this is healthy news.

We don't have that fall reduction in in our service that was originally programmed. We will get more into the summer schedule a little bit later, but everything that we're seeing is gonna be very, very busy for the summer time frame. I'm I'm falling short of quoting quoting the exact increase because the news out of O'Hare with reduction in of flights from the FAA limitation between United and American is gonna change that factor. At its peak, we were seeing summer schedules increase 25% year over year. That's 25% on top of the busiest year ever.

That is a lot. Now with United American being a strong and and their their capacity into O'Hare being a lot of that indicator, a lot of that growth, you are gonna see that get pulled back now that they're starting to come up with that reduction of of flights and the FAA starting to intervene. But it is gonna be a significant increase with some of the r and d all the other things that we've already seen with the increases of frequency in Phoenix, Newark, and all those good good stuff. So that's a quick air service updates. Any questions on air service?

Anthony Belgrom, SSC embraced.

Supervisor Belgrom, thank you.

Thanks. Well, you know, the January dip can be pinned to the the Badger's poor football seasons of late. That usually was a big boost that that January The ball air traffic.

Yeah. You're not wrong. I didn't wanna call it all.

I mean, it was, like, aggregate less than a thousand passengers. And

then so they're did the cruiser originate on a DC flight out of here?

Yes. Yes. Because my

wife's play got canceled on Sunday. Fummer. I had to drive to Milwaukee to pick her up.

Yeah. It's airlines are are definitely operating at kind of peak capacity right now. Unfortunately, your your flights had some problems. I will say that with O'Hare operating near its capacity so at its peak, they were planning on doing 3,200 flights a day. The FAA is asking them to pull back to approximately 2,800, which is still a lot of flights. For reference, we're gonna average about a hundred hundred and five flights a day. Do think about 3,200? That is significant. What that what does that mean for us? We saw it last night.

So we had thunderstorms roll through, and those thunderstorms happened in Chicago as well. We saw eight diversions on the ground within about an hour's time frame before we had to essentially not close the airport, but we closed it for diversion capability. So eight aircraft indicted us. We're still getting kind of a wrap up of the numbers, but a lot of those air aircraft. And the crews timed out, and they spent time with us in the terminal overnight.

So what does that mean with O'Hare operating at such a high capacity? You put any little blip in the radar in front of it, and it's gonna cause this massive ripple effect. So we are are taking that and making sure that our IR ops, which is irregular operations, our diversion plan, is is really good, polished, and we're gonna get really good at it over the next six months as thunderstorm season comes through because that will have

a dramatic impact on what we what we do.

That being said, I keep on going into a couple other my other updates, and I'll get back into some of the industry news here shortly. I alluded to the fact last meeting that we had a a finalized airport strategic plan. This is a a brief synopsis of it because I don't wanna sit here and go through every line item in detail, but this is the five pillar strategic plan that the airport has put out. So this is our three year plan, and we did a three year strategic plan for the the sake of having an airport master plan. Our airport master plan has hopes to be completed in 2028.

At that point, we will have a fresh capital improvement plan, really a fresh perspective on the path forward. And at that point, it feels right to do an upgraded or a new airport strategic plan. So these are the five pillars that are associated with where we're going and and how we're gonna get there. Each pillar has some goals attached to it, some efficiencies and growth, sustainable growth in air service development. So going at and and increasing our western connection is one of those goals.

Financial strength and business optimization, we're working working on a lot of those things. Trusted brand, community relations, and communications. A lot of what we're doing and what you're seeing out in the community is us now taking a step into the community and sharing all the good work we're doing, the economic impact study, all those different things. And then long term vision and airport master planning, we've already talked a lot about this. But this is the emphasis of what will guide us. We'll break this down into yearly plans and then our staff and departmental work plans. Staff is is nervous but excited for it. This is the first year first strategic plan we've had in quite some time. So I'm excited about it. I nerd out on stuff like this and and more to come on kind of the progress.

And at the end of the year, we'll kinda do a wraparound on how we how we performed according to our goals and what we accomplished and where we're gonna continue to continue to work on those pillars. Wanted to get that in front of of you all. General airport updates. If you haven't seen us, we've been out in the news quite a bit lately. So our airport economic impact study was out in the news. The reduction in PFAS is also a good news story sitting out there. Along with that, we did several presentations. So I presented to downtown Destination Madison board, presented to the the downtown Madison. Know. Our initials You guys gotta figure

something out. Fair to Ally, we had it first.

So destination medicine to the board, DMI to the

Overall organization. Coffee. Yep. What's up?

What's up? Yeah. There you go. Coffee. I drink lots of coffee. And then a a new article that came out in in business magazine. So that was a they did a very good job of that, and we appreciated the partnership on that one. The other article that was out there that you saw was the in relation to Runway 321 and the Highway 51 realignment. So we encourage everybody to go take a look at that. And this is a project that's being led by DOT in their open house on March 16 to to learn more about that.

But we're excited to be a supporting project and a supporting neighbor in that. We look forward to really optimizing that stretch of Highway 51 that was already being reconstructed. We're just encouraging and supporting a a realignment of that. Not dramatic, just enough to basically allow us to put an intersection at Hanson Road as well as a shared use path, all those different things. So that is out there. If you wanna get some more information on that, again, please go and look for the DOT open house on March 16.

As far as industry updates,

you guys are are tracking at this was the the talking points for O'Hare and a lot of the things that are going on there. So it's just something that we're tracking as we look to our summer forecast. We're really thinking about how are we gonna prepare for that increasing capacity, thinking about it from a parking perspective, our checkpoints, baggage systems, all those good things, and then making sure that we have all of our contingency plans in place. I don't expect our summer schedule to stay at 25%, but it is gonna be quite high, especially just with the the three new routes, two to Boston and one to Raleigh. You add that in in combination with some of the routes that we've already announced and and frequency additions that we've announced.

It's gonna be a busy summer, and we're excited for it. We're prepared for it. We're ready for it, but it is something that we're it is front of mind even though we're all in March. That being said, I'm I'm not going to talk too much about spring break because I hope to have a spring break recap for you in a month or two. But spring break is we're we're getting basically daily marketing updates, and spring break travel is alive and well. So we are very excited about what's to come and making sure that the folks are prepared for it. So moving on to Department of Homeland Security government shutdown updates. Obviously, you've seen some news around around the country. The the checkpoints are the biggest concern with TSA agents officially being unpaid. Appreciate

all

the community support. We've had a public facing kind of a meal trade that outside agencies can can sign up and basically arrange for a a lunch to be provided for the TSA. All that type of stuff increases the morale, especially as we look to some of the busiest times of the year. Spring break, our our parking manager had said spring break is the year for Super Bowl every year. So we encourage, really, that community participation, and the TSA is extremely appreciative of that.

That being said, knock on wood, Madison hasn't been dramatically impacted by it. Our our staff call outs is remains extremely low and basically on par with how it is traditionally during the normal funded times of the year, we'll call it. So we don't foresee that coming. That being said, we're in constant communication with TSA leadership and making sure that we have some contingency plans in place. Here's what I'll say publicly.

Get here early, not because of one item, but because of all just the general business. Our parking lots are becoming both the spots are available. You'll find a spot, but it might take you an extra lap to find that spot. TSLA lines are are moving, but give yourself some time and flexibility. As much as I appreciate everybody showing up forty five minutes before the park can get on their flight, Let's let's add a little bit of more buffer on that.

We recommend following the airline's guidelines 90, two hours before. Come and enjoy some of the amenities in the airport or work in one of our lounges and and make sure you're getting to your flight on time. Moving on to recruitment and staffing updates. Just a plug shameless plug that we do have several positions out there for for recruitments. We have skilled laborers, steamfitters. We'll have county tents here coming shortly. So the airports, a lot of that has to do with attrition. So just we got a couple folks that are retiring. We are filling those positions. Just a shame of a bug to if anybody knows, anybody that's interested in working at the airport for the county, have them take a look at the county's employment section.

Moving on to the airport master plan, not a significant update here. Scoping continues. I expect to have a contract for you likely in May time frame. Again, we are spending a lot of time going through the scoping and making sure that we are diving into every component that needs to be studied. Planning grants from the federal FAA cannot be amended, so we're making sure that we're doing everything in our power to have the scope and responsibility that's there so we don't think about something a year from now going up.

We should include that in the scope because we can't do it at that point. So we're working through that. But couple of eight hour meetings and long debriefs with the consultants as they learn to scope and and upgrade our our our scope of work. It's gonna

be a

question from supervisor. Supervisor. Okay. Yeah.

Thanks. I I wouldn't sure if you just wish wait to the end. On those positions, are those all airport paid for?

Yeah. I Are they all paid for by the airport?

The positions? Yes. Yep. Yep.

The airport is fully self sustaining. We pay for and keep all of our positions on our our own payroll and no no GPR funding allotted to the airport.

I've I was pretty sure. I just wanna make sure. Thanks. Yep. Thanks. Thanks,

And the last is the part one fifty noise compatibility program is published in the federal register. We only have one comment out there right now, and it is for the support of the extension of 321. So excited to continue to work through that. I believe by the time we have a meeting next month, it will be closed. So I encourage anyone of you that wants to make comments that hasn't already been included in the comments, please go on and do that. Any questions on airport updates?

That is all I have. Awesome. Thank you. Next item is reports from the chair, I do not have any. Thank you for the great work. Item I, future meetings meeting items and dates. We are next scheduled for 04/15/2026. Last item is public comment on items not on the agenda. Hearing none, I'll take a motion for adjournment. So second. I was gonna say so moved. Sorry. I'm sorry you're saying. All those in favor say aye.

Aye. Alright.

We are adjourned. Thank you all very much online. Thank you.