A new hope for city airport

Passenger service to start at Detroit's tattered gateway

August 12, 2006
Section: Business
Page: 01B

By Sarah Ryley
The Detroit News

DETROIT -- The top level of the passenger terminal at Coleman A. Young Municipal Airport is a virtual time capsule.

Rows of empty seats line the windows. The gift shop cooler is half-stocked with murky bottles of Ice Mountain spring water, dust-caked soda cans and spoiled orange juice. A 1997-98 Ameritech phone book sits on the old Pro Air counter.

It's as if nothing has changed since now-bankrupt Pro Air pulled out in 2000, the last of 11 commercial airlines since 1975 to attempt offering passenger service directly to the city of Detroit.

Despite the airport's track record, Cleveland-based Destination One is going to give passenger service to Detroit a go, beginning Monday, when the public charter carrier will start offering three flights a day into Detroit.

The problems other airlines have cited as reasons for their failure - high crime in the surrounding neighborhood, inadequate runways and a lack of funding for repairs - remain. But Destination One CEO Mike Hoyle thinks the company can succeed where others have not by using a different business model and by taking advantage of high demand for business travel. Detroit is one of five cities Destination One will serve.

"We're not flying people in on a 737 commercial jet, we're using a 30-passanger jet prop aircraft, which is smaller and more efficient," Hoyle said. "We're also not flying long distances, which require more runway space."

Destination One is the most visible sign that things are changing at the park-and-go airport on Detroit's east side.

For the past few years, the city has been quietly buying and demolishing property in the neighborhood enclosed by the airport's two runways and Van Dyke Avenue to meet new Federal Aviation Administration requirements for expanded runway clearance.

Eventually, a 5,000- to 6,500-foot replacement runway could be built, essential if the airport wants to accommodate larger private and commercial jets and become a home base for many of the region's corporations.

City officials have been talking about building a replacement runway and becoming a secondary airport to Detroit Metro in Romulus for decades. But Delbert Brown, director of the airport commonly known as Detroit City Airport, said changes in the aviation industry and the growth of the region are going to make this time different, particularly in light of this week's massive security backups following the foiled terrorist plot.

"Airlines are looking to fly into smaller airports that are less dense in terms of traffic," he said, citing city airports that have made comebacks, such as those in Atlanta and Washington, D.C. U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D- Mich., said Wednesday that she chose to board a private jet at the city airport while on a campaign trail because of its convenience.

"We have the large, international airport, and then we have the opportunity with this airport for people to travel within

Michigan to places that don't have commercial airline service like Alpena," she said.

For the time being, Destination One - which serves five cities but only Cleveland and Cincinnati from Detroit -- will share the lower level of the terminal with passengers and pilots of the more than 200 private aircraft that use the airport every day.

There's no food court like at Detroit Metro Airport, but it does boast five vending machines; complimentary coffee, cookies and popcorn; free wireless Internet; and cozy leather recliners that face a remote-control operated big screen
television.

Many in the city airport's tight-knit community of pilots said this week that they are optimistic about the airport's success, contending that it's a underused gem in the region despite its obvious problems.

"The biggest hurdles are the nay-sayers," said Brian Smith, former national president of the Tuskegee Airmen Inc., a foundation dedicated to preserving the history of the first black military airmen. He heads the Tuskegee Airmen Glider Club, which has 35 members and provides free flying lessons to inner city children.

According to Detroit police records, there were more than 500 crimes reported between 2001 and Sept. 2004 in the neighborhood where the city is buying property. The crimes included everything from multiple homicides to drug trafficking to kidnapping. But on airport grounds, it's a different atmosphere.

On Wednesday evening, a limo waited to take a group of eight executives and clients to a Detroit Tigers game, while another group of 10 walked by, also on their way to the game.

"It's a shame the airport hasn't been more utilized," said corporate pilot Adam Stith.

"It's really a gem just in its proximity to Detroit businesses and entertainment. The only alternative is Detroit Metro, and during rush hour there's no way they would have made it on time."