The Oklahoma Aeronautics Commission is proposing $98 million in improvements to airports around the state in the coming two fiscal years. Projects are 40 airports within the state system are included in the Capital Improvement Program for fiscal years 2017-2019.
The majority of the projects, according to Vic Bird, director of the Aeronautics Commission will be pavement work such as the rehabilitation of a runway or taxiway.
“Companies that provide the majority of jobs in our state are using our airports and airways,” said Bird. “Developing our airports and keeping them well maintained is essential to ensuring that the needs of business and industry, as well as communities in which they are located, are met.”
Oklahoma City’s Wiley Post Airport and Tulsa’s R.L. Jones-Riverside Airport are two of the many airports listed in the program. Eaker Field in Durant and Stillwater Regional Airport have four projects each, while Ardmore Municipal Airport and Claremore Regional Airport have three.
Nearly $10 million will be spent in various projects involving the taxiway system at the Stillwater Regional Airport. A $4.6 million project will be carried out to build a new 4,000-foot runway at Bristow’s Jones Memorial Airport and a $3.5 million new terminal building will be constructed at Lawton-Ft. Still Regional Airport. Improvements will also be made to Davis Field in Muskogee, the Miami Municipal Airport and the Guymon Municipal Airport.
Bird said companies such as Walmart with nearly 31,000 employees in the state; Love’s Country Stores; Michelin in Ardmore; Seaboard Farms in Guymon; and ConocoPhillips in Bartlesville as well as the Choctaw Nation and Chickasaw Nation are some of the biggest users of the Oklahoma Airport System.
