SPECIAL REPORT: IT
GENERAL AVIATION
Raleigh-Durham’s impressive general aviation terminal.
a convenient jump off point for corporate travellers seeking to get straight to their commercial or financial offices on the island. While Teterboro handled 130,000 GA flights last year, Tragale and
Smith point out that the sector is still fragile, being the first to be hit by the economic downturn and one of the slowest to recover both in New York and right across the US. According to figures from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA),
there were over 39.8 million general aviation operations in 2000, but by 2010 this had fallen 25% to 29.3 million, and it predicts that by 2025 the yearly total will have only recovered to 34.6 million operations. In a recent report, GAMA stated 2009 was “one of the toughest
years the general aviation industry has ever experienced,” with constraints on credit and slow economic growth leading to a swathe of GA aircraft order cancellations.
Indeed, shipments of US business jets were down 46.2% in 2009, while worldwide shipments were down only 33.7%, says GAMA. The liquidation of light aircraft manufacturer Eclipse Aviation in 2008 also struck another blow to the industry. But these difficulties aside, general aviation is recognised as an
important part of the economic and social life of the country and North Carolina’s Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU) is a case in point. As the airport is situated within the ‘The Triangle’, a 13-county stretch of
North Carolina that is home to clusters of high tech, biotechnology and defense companies and anchored by several research universities, it was felt RDU needed a general aviation terminal designed to cater to corporate demand. So, in 1997, RDU commenced a $56.6 million, three-phase rehabilitation
of its general aviation terminal and support facilities in order to provide a ‘first class’ facility.
AIRPORT WORLD/OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2010 67
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