The Monroe County Airport is requiring reservations to fly into the airport the day of the eclipse. Increased traffic is expected.
Carlos Laverty, airport director, said people may reserve a spot from 8 a.m. Saturday, April 6 through 8 p.m. on Monday, April 8.
“They have to tell us what type of plane they are flying, when did they expect to arrive and when did they expect to depart,” Laverty said. “Then we put that into a database.”
Airport director Carlos Laverty said on eclipse day, there will be designated viewing areas for the public and EMS on standby. (Max Rebolledo)
Ten planes are permitted to arrive every 15 minutes. He will be closing the runway at 2:45 p.m. for 30 minutes, which is when the height of the eclipse will occur.
“While people are watching the sun and having a good time, our crew is going to be out there,” Laverty said. “We're going to do a runway inspection, make sure that there's no foreign objects or debris on the runway, give us a chance to kind of let our air traffic controllers, retool themselves to start planning departures.”
Laverty said he is working on a parking plan and map to handle departing planes after the eclipse. If a plane is not able to start or cannot leave, it will be towed out of the way to avoid backups.
“As they [planes] come in, we're going to pre-stage them to leave,” he said. “We're going to have their tail number when they land — it's going to be color-coded depending on what time they want to leave … they have to live up to it [reservation] because if they don't, everything gets gummed up really quickly.”
The airport controls the four miles of airspace surrounding the facility, Laverty said. Pilots are required to radio into the air traffic control tower to get permission to land.
Laverty explains how the airspace works. He can see where other planes are flying and better plan departures and landings. (Max Rebolledo)
“If you don't have one [a reservation], you're going to be turned away at the door,” he said. “We're trying to manage the flow of traffic and not get slammed at one or two o'clock on April 8, and we're trying to spread it out.”
It costs $50 to land a piston-powered, smaller plane, and $100 to land a turbine-powered, bigger business plane. If the weather is good, Laverty expects more than 300 planes flying in.
“We can park about 200 aircraft here, but the problem is, just like with the weather, we don't know what to expect,” Laverty said. “We also don't know what aircraft intend to come here … if we get a lot of the business jets, the number of aircraft we can park here dramatically goes down. But if it stays small, general aviation piston powered aircraft, we can get closer to that 200 number.”
Employees work on and store aircraft in the airport's hangar. (Max Rebolledo)
Rex Hinkle, president of Cook Aviation, said he is planning to order an extra 4,000 gallons of avgas for piston planes and 20,000 gallons of jet and turbine fuel. Avgas costs $6.70 per gallon; jet fuel costs $6.10 per gallon. He does not expect any shortages.
Rex Hinkle, president of Cook Aviation, said he isn't worrying about running out of fuel on eclipse day. He is ordering extra fuel in advance to account for the potential influx of air traffic. (Devan Ridgway)
“I think people need to make sure that they have fuel in their cars,” Hinkle said. “I think that is more of a concern than it is with aviation world…[but] we want to make sure we don't run out of fuel. If you run out of fuel, you're out of business.”
Fuel prices are not expected to increase as more people order extra fuel in preparation for the eclipse. Hinkle orders avgas from Kentucky and Texas and jet fuel from Indianapolis. A full load of fuel is 8,000 gallons. The airport stores extra fuel underground in two 20,000-gallon jet tanks and one 12,000-gallon avgas tank.
Cook Aviation stores its fuel underground. They store mainly fuel for aircraft, and some auto fuel for the airport's ground vehicles. (Devan Ridgway)
So far, the airport has spent around $5,000 on portable toilets, shuttle vans and food. There will also be food trucks and EMS on standby in case of an emergency. Laverty said he will most likely spend up to $7,000 on out-of-pocket expenses for this event. He expects to break even.
“As much as we'd like to generate revenue to help operate the airport, we are a public use airport; we're open to anybody who wants to fly in here 24/7,” he said. “We're not going to get rich on this, we have to try to accommodate everybody that we can out here. There's so many other cool events happening in Bloomington at this time that we are more than happy to get people on those shuttle buses and bring them into town.”
Laverty said he is worried about communications on the day of the eclipse with the large influx of people in the area. He just ordered additional walkie talkies and VHF radios. Cellular communications are also a concern.
“We have a priority system for our cell phones; we’re considered first responders here at the airport,” he said. “The government and the cell phone companies work together to ensure that our lines have priority. In cases of natural disasters or an event like the eclipse, we're hoping that system works.”
All 12 airport employees will work the day of the eclipse.
