What It Takes To Get Rid Of An Airport

The City of St. Clair, located in Franklin County, has an airport problem. Namely, the city is losing money on its small, general aviation airport. As the St. Clair Missourian reported last week, the airport has only four remaining tenants and use of the airport is at an all-time low.

So why not simply put up the “for sale” sign? For the last five years, the city government has been trying to do just that. But due to stringent federal regulations, the sale of even a miniscule airport can be an odyssey for local governments.

In theory, when a municipality builds and maintains an airport, whether that be Lambert-St. Louis International Airport or St. Clair Regional Airport, that government is free to do what it pleases with its property, including selling it. However, if a city has accepted federal money to upgrade its airport, as St. Clair has many times, federal regulations, known as the FAA’s grant assurances, tightly restrict that freedom.

Two of the more cumbersome assurances for a city like St. Clair are Nos. 5 and 25. Assurance No. 5 obligates St. Clair to maintain it as a public airport and not dispose or sell any part of the airport without FAA approval. The FAA will only give approval if St. Clair can show that closing the airport improves aviation in the area. In addition, the dispensation to sell the airport does not free St. Clair from reimbursing the federal government all recent federal grants. This will cost the city more than $750,000.

Assurance No. 25 prevents any revenue from the airport from being used for non-aviation purposes. According to the assurance, money from the sale of an airport is airport revenue. So to sell, St. Clair will have to submit a report on fair market value of its airport to the FAA, and put all sale proceeds from the sale into an escrow account for other regional airports to use on aviation-related purposes. The FAA has already rejected a number of St. Clair’s valuations as too low, further delaying any possible sale.

St. Clair’s experience trying to sell its own money-losing airport should act as a reminder to Missouri municipalities on the complications of having a public airport and accepting federal dollars. It is better to support the development of private airports or lease existing airports to private owners than to spend money and time begging the federal government to let them get rid of a bad investment.