Grand Rapids Airport (GRR) News and Developments

[GreatLakesPrintShop]

Was Portland  already announced?

Edited May 6 by GreatLakesPrintShop
New info?

[Pattmost20]

10 minutes ago, GreatLakesPrintShop said:

Was Portland  already announced?

Multnomah falls! I hiked there back in 2014.

 

Portland was announced a few months back.

[joeDowntown]

WOODTV had a story about Allegiant adding a non-stop flight to Newark. Is this new, or previously announced and just now happening?

Joe

[GRDadof3]

On 5/6/2021 at 1:35 PM, GreatLakesPrintShop said:

Was Portland  already announced?

Why the spray bottle? Are they filling the streams in Oregon with chemicals?  

It's great seeing the airport busy again. We flew back from vacation mid week last week and arrived around 3:30pm. Concourse A was packed at almost every gate and spilling into the main aisle. And the pick-up dropoff area was nuts. 

Wonder when the physical construction of the concourse expansion is set to begin. Anyone heard? And the tower move? 

The expanded apron won an award!

https://www.grr.org/news/ford-airports-terminal-reconstruction-and-expansion-project-receives-acec-engineering-excellence-merit-award

[NoDustBusterNoMore]

Haven't heard anything about the concourse expansion lately, but there should be a couple of new hangars popping up around the airport fairly soon.

[walker]

2 hours ago, NoDustBusterNoMore said:

Haven't heard anything about the concourse expansion lately, but there should be a couple of new hangars popping up around the airport fairly soon.

Occasionally I do my daily exercise walk around the perimeter of the airport between the terminal and the viewing area and back.  Walking by the other day I noticed Rockford Construction is building something just west of the Amway hanger. I think the building permit on their trailer said Meijer hanger.  And on the other side of the street there is another hanger of some sort just about finished being built adjacent to the short north runway.  

[NoDustBusterNoMore]

24 minutes ago, walker said:

Occasionally I do my daily exercise walk around the perimeter of the airport between the terminal and the viewing area and back.  Walking by the other day I noticed Rockford Construction is building something just west of the Amway hanger. I think the building permit on their trailer said Meijer hanger.  And on the other side of the street there is another hanger of some sort just about finished being built adjacent to the short north runway.  

Yep, the Meijer Hangar should be going up soon.

Then the West Michigan Aviation Academy is putting up a hangar at the end of the concrete pad in the picture below:

@walkerIs that the hangar you saw that's almost finished?

[walker]

4 hours ago, NoDustBusterNoMore said:

Yep, the Meijer Hangar should be going up soon.

Then the West Michigan Aviation Academy is putting up a hangar at the end of the concrete pad in the picture below:

@walkerIs that the hangar you saw that's almost finished?

Yes, except there is actually a building there now.  Considering how close it is to the school, I was thinking it might be connected to them.

[ChevalierNoir]

On 6/1/2021 at 12:25 PM, NoDustBusterNoMore said:

Yep, the Meijer Hangar should be going up soon.

I work for Meijer and had no idea they were building their own hangar! I wonder if they will still use Signature for their terminal/waiting area or will build that into the new building. 

[GR8scott]

Just noticed an update from the airport showing mock control tower layout and looked somewhat odd, maybe heptagon shaped. Glad they seem to be moving forward with all of the project elevate expansion plans (slowly) including the control tower which they said was too short but commented it was still at least 3-5 years out. Interestingly the currently tower is apparently the 2nd oldest tower in US top 100 airports, its estimated at 136ft and the new similar looking ones recently built in kzoo and TC are listed at 166 and 160 ft. so hope they building something aesthetically pleasing and taller than those since it will be even more visible. 

https://www.facebook.com/FlyGRFord

[walker]

Yesterday United Airlines announced that they’ve signed an agreement to acquire one-hundred electric powered airliners for Mesa Airlines, their United Express commuter airline.  Nobody said anything about using these in Grand Rapids but I thought these would be an ideal aircraft to use for multiple round trips between Grand Rapids and Milwaukee.  These are small nineteen seat commuter planes with limited range.  Back before nineteen seat turboprop planes became uneconomical to fly mainly because of fuel prices, Grand Rapids was served on many routes to nearby second tier cities using turboprop commuter aircraft.  Cities such as Dayton, Columbus, Indianapolis, Traverse City, and others.    But most successfully Milwaukee. 

 Grand Rapids to and from Milwaukee is a short trip you could easily drive if it wasn't for Lake Michigan sitting between the two cities. The trick to make it work is you need to have multiple flights spread over the day which isn't economical using larger aircraft. Back before nineteen seat turboprops became uneconomical Skyway Airlines flew around eight roundtrips between the two cities daily using mostly Beech 1900 turboprop commuter aircraft along with a couple flights using an odd small 32 seat jet.  Skyway Airlines was the commuter airline for Midwest Express.  (The relaunch of Midwest Express that was announced a couple of years ago and was commented on here was someone’s pipe dream that appears to be dead in the water, I suppose you could say me proposing using this electric aircraft is my pipe dream.)

Here's United’s announcement:

United electric aircraft announcement

And here’s the website of the aircraft manufacturer.  If you pull-up their FAQ they tell you why they are starting with a nineteen seat aircraft rather than something bigger and why it will be economical to operate unlike the old nineteen seat turboprops:

https://heartaerospace.com/

I suppose the downside of this is we’d need more of those unsightly windmills and solar farms to generate electricity.

Edited July 14 by walker
added photo