Both Paine Field Deputy Directors (Bruce Fisher and Ryan Zulauf) gave us our annual airport update as our January dinner meeting program. (Arif Ghouse, our Airport Director stopped by to see us on his way to an event with his sonand apologized for not being with us but I think we all agree that family comes before friends!) Some of the big projects during 2018 were:
- Resurfacing the main runway after the ‘fog seal’ coating failed causing loss of runway friction. In all, 13,740 tons of asphalt were milled out and replaced equivalent 18 miles of single lane road!
- Taxiway Bravo resurface and the new “B Apron” were completed providing more parking for the increased jet traffic being seen at Castle & Cooke.
- Commercial Air Terminal – Our Paine Field staff has been very busy with their own set of activities associated with the new terminal.
Richard Jones
President - Paine Field WPA Chapter
I heard a rumor a few weeks ago that small airplanes would be denied access to the main runway at Paine Field after commercial air service starts. My fact checking indicates that this is not true! Even at SEATAC smaller GA planes like most of us fly are welcome. As Bruce Fisher, Deputy Director of Operations said recently “16R/34L is everyone’s runway”. George Futas wrote a nice article in our January newsletter regarding how to fit in with jet traffic better. Yes, we will see a small increase in jet traffic at Paine Field during 2019 but we have been operating with jets on the main runway for many years. Total aircraft operations are still down significantly from what they were 10 years ago.
