{"id":22074,"date":"2025-05-28T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-28T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/when-will-durango-airport-hit-threshold-for-an-air-traffic-control-tower\/"},"modified":"2025-05-28T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-05-28T11:00:00","slug":"when-will-durango-airport-hit-threshold-for-an-air-traffic-control-tower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/when-will-durango-airport-hit-threshold-for-an-air-traffic-control-tower\/","title":{"rendered":"When will Durango airport hit threshold for an air traffic control tower?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Ground
Ground crew personnel at Durango-La Plata County Airport, push out an American Airlines plane in May for take off. The airport saw record air travel in 2025 \u2013 13% more than in 2024 and the most ever in the past 25 years. (Jerry McBride\/ Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Terry Dunlay of Durango has been a pilot for about six years and flies his single-engine propeller plane in and out of Durango-La Plata County Airport about once a week.<\/p>\n

Over those years, Dunlay, 67, said the air traffic control system at DRO functions, but there seems to be a need for a proper air traffic control tower.<\/p>\n

Currently, DRO is a \u201cnon-towered\u201d airport, and pilots use a Common Traffic Advisory Frequency, an open radio frequency, to communicate their positions and flight intentions to other aircraft and any vehicles on the ground. The airport has one asphalt runway measuring 9,201 by 150 feet.<\/p>\n

With CTAF, or pilot-to-pilot communication, a protocol is used to let other pilots know step-by-step flight status and current location using call signs for takeoff and landing, finishing with the code word \u201cDurango.\u201d At controlled airports, tower personnel make the calls. Air traffic control at Durango is monitored by the Denver Air Route Traffic Control Center in Longmont.<\/p>\n

\"An
An American Airlines pilot lands at Durango-La Plata County Airport on Friday. DRO is a \u201cnon-towered\u201d airport. Pilots use a Common Traffic Advisory Frequency, an open radio frequency, to communicate their positions and flight intentions to other aircraft and vehicles on the ground. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cThe issue at Durango is that it\u2019s got quite a few commercial airlines taking off and landing and you\u2019ve got a lot of smaller planes, too,\u201d said Dunlay, a retired biotech company manager. \u201cThe issue ends up being if you don\u2019t have a tower, everything is based on those radio communications with the other pilots.\u201d<\/p>\n

Durango-La Plata County Airport first opened for commercial airline service in 1946. The current airport, which hasn\u2019t had an air traffic control tower since it opened in 1988, is co-owned by the city of Durango and La Plata County and managed by the city.<\/p>\n

According to a June 2023 report<\/a> by the Federal Aviation Administration, the FAA employs about 13,300 air traffic controllers in more than 300 facilities across the United States and currently, almost 10,600 are certified professional controllers. The report concluded \u201cthe lack of fully certified controllers, operational supervisors and traffic management coordinators pose a potential risk to air traffic operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year, the U.S. Department of Transportation said the U.S. air traffic control system is undergoing a major overhaul to modernize outdated infrastructure and improve safety and efficiency. According to The Associated Press, the Trump administration announced on May 8 a three-year plan to replace the nation\u2019s aging air traffic control system. Doing that will require billions of dollars and a $12.5 billion budget proposal drafted by a House committee in early May. The proposal represents a \u201cdown payment\u201d on the plan, developed after the fatal midair collision over Washington, D.C., in January.<\/p>\n

\"Tony
Tony Vicari, director of aviation at Durango-La Plata County Airport, monitors airport air traffic on Friday at his desk using a handheld radio. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Tony Vicari, director of aviation at DRO, said the CTAF system that serves as air traffic control in Durango has been efficient and there has never been a permanent control tower at the airport, although temporary towers have been installed during wildfires.<\/p>\n

Vicari, who\u2019s been at DRO since 2015, said the CTAF functions well in coordinating pilot actions and traffic patterns. Durango-La Plata County Airport and its staff of 22 full-time employees \u2013 none involved in air traffic control \u2013 handle about 40,000 aircraft operations annually, including runway flow operations. Those operations include private flights, recreational flying and other non-scheduled flights; scheduled commercial flights; air taxi flights operated by smaller airlines or companies providing transportation services; and military flights. He said the current system efficiently manages and coordinates all flights using the airport, including American Airlines and United Airlines.<\/p>\n

At DRO, there is no FAA personnel on site to monitor its Class E airspace, controlled airspace designed for both en route and terminal operations. It\u2019s monitored by air traffic control, but pilots operating under visual flight rules generally don\u2019t need air traffic control clearance to fly in it. It is the most common type of airspace below 18,000 feet; air space above that level is controlled by air traffic control.<\/p>\n

Additionally, Vicari, who\u2019s lived in Durango for 11 years, said non-towered airports are \u201cextremely common\u201d across the United States, although less so at airports with commercial airline service. He mentioned the Montrose Regional Airport, the Steamboat Springs Airport and the Gunnison-Crested Butte Regional Airport as comparable non-towered airports.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the current non-towered system here is safe and functions efficiently. It\u2019s a commonly used approach around the nation; it functions safely,\u201d he said. \u201cAs the airport\u2019s traffic continues to grow, which it has, over time the conversation at some point does push toward \u2018when is a fixed-tower airport something that would be required?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A
A United Airlines plane readies for take off at Durango-La Plata County Airport on Friday as a private jet taxies to take off. Tony Vicari, director of aviation at DRO, said there are no current plans to consider adding a control tower, and implantation of one is \u201ccomplex\u201d and could be a $10 million to $20 million investment. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

As for the current state and functionality of how DRO operates and monitors air traffic, Vicari said it is a combination of the airport working with the FAA \u2013 based on a cost-benefit analysis \u2013 to determine when a tower is necessary. He said airports with \u201clower operational volumes\u201d do not generally trigger an FAA evaluation for a control tower.<\/p>\n

Vicari said there are no current plans to consider adding a control tower, and implementation of one is \u201ccomplex\u201d and could require a $10 million to $20 million capital investment to build the facility, along with ongoing staffing expenses.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we look at it in the future, it will continue to be a conversation with the FAA around when the traffic levels at DRO would rise to the volume that would trigger that cost benefit to state a tower is the direction we need to be going,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Vicari added that the airport is also looking at the recent development of digital towers, which replace brick-and-mortar towers using remote technology such as camera arrays and digital technology. These systems, in coordination with the FAA, would allow for localized air traffic control of nearby airspace but done remotely by certified air traffic controllers who are not on site.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does represent potential opportunity for medium-sized and smaller airports that are currently non-towered,\u201d he said. \u201cYou could offer control tower services without the steep, eight-figure capital investment. It\u2019s something we\u2019re keeping our eyes on as we grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. Department of Transportation also plans to install \u201c4,600 high-speed network connections for data and communications across the air traffic control system at airports and radar control centers and other facilities across the country,\u201d according to The Associated Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Private and commercial pilots use an open radio frequency to communicate their positions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22075,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[915,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-22074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-durango-la-plata-county-airport","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22074"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=22074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}