Five St. Louis Area Airport Directors Participate in Take Flight Forum

By Carmelo Turdo

Five St. Louis area airport directors participated in the St. Louis Regional Freightway Take Flight Forum held on Wednesday at the Bi-State Development offices in downtown St. Louis. Throughout the hour-long program, each airport director addressed the market niche served by their airport and provided updates on tenant operations, capital investments, workforce development and the economic impact of their facilities. The over-arching theme of the program, above the contributions of each individual airport, was the spirit of collaboration necessary to grow the aviation services sector of the region.     

The St. Louis Regional Freightway is an enterprise of Bi-State Development founded in 2014 to promote and enhance the St. Louis region's capabilities as a multi-modal freight hub. The Take Flight Forum was an opportunity to highlight the aviation sector as an economic driver in the bi-state area, affecting not only the immediate communities but the state and nation as well. The Forum was moderated by Mary Lamie, Executive Vice President of Multimodal Enterprises for Bi-State Development. Here we feature Mary Lamie and Bi-State Development President and CEO, Taulby Roach, giving their opening remarks.

The Take Flight Forum participants testified to the aviation industry's resilience through good times and bad, and they provided practical steps toward growing the region's aviation services now and into the future. They are (L-R):

Daniel Adams, St. Louis Regional Airport; Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge, St. Louis-Lambert International Airport; Sandra Shore, St. Louis Downtown Airport; Bryan Johnson, MidAmerica St. Louis Airport; and John Bales, Spirit of St. Louis Airport. 

St. Louis Regional Airport, East Alton, IL

St. Louis Regional Airport serves general aviation and corporate customers, providing over 1,500 jobs and generating an economic impact of $480M. The airport is home to West Star Aviation, a heavy maintenance and overhaul business servicing the most popular corporate jet aircraft at locations throughout the Midwest and South. Aircraft from around the world seek out the services of West Star, and they plan to expand their skilled workforce into the foreseeable future. The airport has significant room for development of new facilities to meet the needs of the aviation community for many years to come.                                                                                 

Daniel Adams is a St. Louis University Aviation Management and Flight Science graduate. He has been on the job as Airport Director since April of this year after serving as Airport Operations Coordinator and Operations Supervisor at the Columbus, Ohio Regional Airport. 

“St. Louis has been home for me. I grew up here, went to school here. My first job in aviation was actually at St. Louis Downtown Airport as an intern. Great opportunity to come home – I couldn’t pass up on it." 

Referring to the other panelists, Adams reflected on the level of cooperation he has already experienced in his new role. 

 

“We all want to see each other succeed. We all have our own little market in aviation and we’re all excited when somebody else gets another project or another airline service or another improvement to their airport. So having that friendly competition was an environment that I knew existed here and something I was excited to come back to."

When asked about having West Star at the airport, Adams was enthusiastic about their contribution to the region's aviation industry. 

“West Star is a great tenant to have - about six hundred employees and they’re six hundred good-paying jobs. They are constantly hiring – constantly trying to get more of all different varieties of mechanics, administration, anything. They need more people. They can do just about anything on your aircraft they can touch, and they can touch just about any type of aircraft as well. They are centrally located in the area, which I think is good to bring in business from not just the United States but from around the world. Planes and customers come to visit them in East Alton, Illinois, which I think is pretty special." 

St. Louis-Lambert International Airport, St. Louis, MO

St. Louis-Lambert international Airport is the commercial air carrier hub for the St. Louis and bi-state region, tracing its roots to the lease of land by Albert Bond Lambert in 1920. The founding of the Missouri National Guard's 110th Observation Squadron came in 1923, and St. Louis businessmen joined Lambert in financing Charles Lindbergh's solo trans-Atlantic flight in 1927. The municipal airport grew and became home to such legendary aircraft manufacturers as Curtiss-Wright and later McDonnell Aircraft, McDonnell Douglas and now Boeing. TWA and Ozark Airlines were the main air carriers throughout the jet age. Expansion continued to include Terminal 2 and the W-1W parallel runway project. Today St. Louis-Lambert International Airport has become a major hub for Southwest Airlines and a growing number of international flights, and construction of a consolidated terminal is under consideration. 

Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge has served as Airport Director since January of 2010. She brought a unique perspective to the job, having served in management roles with American Airlines, TWA and Ozark Airlines in St. Louis. Hamm-Niebruegge has overseen the airport's recovery from the economic downturn of 2008, the effects of the loss of TWA and Ozark Airlines traffic, the Covid pandemic and numerous other challenges. In 2021, the airport handled 10.4M passengers and over 66,200 departures while recovering from the downturn in 2020. Cargo operations are also increasing.

When asked about the strength of the aviation sector in St. Louis and the advantages of having five different airports with different service niches, Hamm-Niebruegge was optimistic.  

“One of the things unique about St. Louis and the region is that we really don’t compete like a lot of other places. Kansas City is the nearest large passenger terminal, and we don’t compete against Kansas City. If you look at other states in the region – Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Akron, Dayton – they’re all pulling from each other for that passenger traffic. We’re not. So, I think we’re unique in that. But when you put the greater group together and you think about the offerings that we can have, whether it’s on the passenger side of the house, the cargo side of the house, general aviation. So, if you’re a customer in this region, you have a choice of going just about anywhere that works for you and I think that’s a very unique place to be.”

Collaboration in a competitive environment was the recurring theme of the Forum, and Hamm-Niebruegge added a new dimension to the discussion among the airport directors.

“We reach out a lot to our essential air service markets. That’s another critical piece that a lot of airports don’t really care about because it’s not a lot of traffic. But for us it’s a dot on our map and if we can bring a couple thousand people from Quincy in or a couple thousand people from Kirksville into our airport connecting somewhere else, that’s a great thing. This industry just keeps coming back around to you.”

St. Louis Downtown Airport, Cahokia Heights, IL

St. Louis Downtown Airport traces its history to 1929 when it opened as Curtiss-Steinberg Airport before the long association with Oliver Parks, Parks College and later St. Louis University flight programs. During World War II, the USAAF provided basic flight training at the airport. The Parks era ended in the late 1950s, and Bi-State Development began the long-term development of what would become the current state-of-the-art facility that serves general aviation and corporate customers. The airport's largest business is Gulfstream Aerospace, and a new Ground Engine Run-Up project has broken ground to support their expansion. 

Sandra Shore became the St. Louis Downtown Airport Director in February of 2022 after serving as Airport Director at Quincy, IL Regional Airport. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Aviation Management from SIU-Carbondale and holds several AAAE credentials including Airport Accredited Executive. Shore sees her role as serving the region as well as the airport, focusing on workforce development and increasing the economic impact of the aviation industry in the community. 

When asked about the greatest challenge facing the aviation industry right now, Shore did not hesitate in her answer. 

“Workforce development. In Illinois alone, the aviation industry is a ninety-six-billion-dollar industry, and that requires a lot of talent to support it. So, what we are trying to do at St. Louis Downtown Airport is really engage with our two collegiate programs, Southwestern Illinois College and St. Louis University, and start the education process early and engage young individuals and try to garner some interest with them in aviation.  A theme that you’ll see a lot is, ‘Oh, I want to be a pilot because my dad was’ or ‘My uncle ran this FBO.’ I didn’t have that experience – I don’t have anybody in aviation in my family. So, I had to find aviation. I want to kind of flip the script and find great young people and give them the interest in aviation first. So we do that by really engaging in our educational programs – as many career fairs as you can, a lot of our tenants go directly into the high schools around here. St. Louis University does an aviation camp every year. We get kids from all around the country. Most recently we did a Girls in Aviation Day at the St. Louis University hangar which also included our friends at Southwestern Illinois College. We had girls from Girl Scouts to Seniors at high school in West County. What we are really trying to do is engage young people early and really show them what aviation has to offer - not just the pilots but mechanics, airport operations, dispatchers - we need them all right now.”

St. Louis Downtown Airport supports job growth at the airport and in the community.  

“We are really proud of the diversity of our tenants and our businesses. Even though we all have our own niche, at St. Louis Downtown we really hit all the corners. We have multiple aircraft maintenance operators, multiple helicopter operators, three flight schools – St. Louis Flight Training, Ideal Aviation and St. Louis University, the oldest flight school in the country. We also have the headquarters of Helicopters, Inc. that do charter and helicopter services, our news helicopters. Our great fixed-base operator, Jet Aviation, who provide our frontline services, and of course our largest employer, Gulfstream Aerospace, which currently has three hundred and seventy-five jobs. They recently announced an expansion for an additional hundred and forty. And we hope that with our infrastructure improvements for them, we continue to see that growth."

MidAmerica St. Louis Airport, Mascoutah, IL

MidAmerica St. Louis Airport is a joint-use airport located adjacent to Scott AFB. The airport was conceived in the early 1990s and opened in 1998. After more than a decade of intermittent passenger and cargo service, the airport has seen a stable growth in commercial airline service. The airport is served by Allegiant Airlines to eleven destinations around the country. Boeing, the airport's largest tenant, is building a new production facility for the MQ-25  Stingray Carrier-Based Unmanned Refueling System aerial tanker. 

Bryan Johnson became the MidAmerica St. Louis Airport Director in April 2020. He previously served as Airport Director at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport in Broomfield, CO and as a Senior Consultant for Aviation Management Consulting Group. He was one of sixty applicants from a national search and brings a wealth of industry expertise to the position.

When asked about the nexus of collaboration and competition, he drew parallels to his previous experience in Colorado.

“When we were looking at relocating to the St. Louis area, there were a couple of things I was more interested in. One is, 'What is the aviation and aerospace industry like here compared to other places around the country.' In Denver, the GDP for aviation and aerospace is somewhere between seventeen and twenty percent. So it was real apparent to me that there was a similar community here. There was significant aviation and aerospace, and not just with Boeing, but of all the other entities that integrate and work with our airports collectively and otherwise. The other thing – I think it’s more personal – and that relates to the leadership up here on the stage with me. So, the thing about aviation is you get to know each other, whether directly or indirectly. You see them at conferences, you see them post articles, you see them write articles, you see them leading not only their airports, but you see them contributing nationally to other airports and the entire national airspace system. So, knowing I had good friends and partners here, that will really dovetail well for all of us.”

The Boeing MQ-25 program will have significant impact on the airport's economic contribution to the community.

“We are really privileged to have in our community another production facility and that’s really, really key. We’re talking about thirty-four acres, three hundred thousand square feet under roof. One hundred fifty to two hundred jobs initially, possibly up to three hundred total. Production line is somewhere between twelve and fifteen annually once they get spooled up. So, the relationship has been pretty special. There’s a lot of symmetry really between our Boeing facility and the one over at STL. So, a lot of great energy there and a lot of great energy whether it’s Boeing, whether it’s maintenance repair operator, air service. It’s pretty special to be working with Boeing.”

Spirit of St. Louis Airport, Chesterfield, MO

Spirit of St. Louis Airport was developed as an alternative to then Lambert-St. Louis International Airport for the business aviation sector. The project was spearheaded by aviator and aerospace engineer Paul Haglin and the airport was officially opened in 1965. Since then, the airport became a home for corporate flight departments, starting with Ralston-Purina. Today, the airport accommodates a large number of corporate and general aviation aircraft, multiple FBOs, Wings of Hope global humanitarian aviation organization, Elite Aviation flight school, the Red Tail Cadet Program and one of the nation's biggest airshows.  

John Bales has been the Spirit of St. Louis Airport Director since 2007. He grew up in aviation as the son of an Ozark Airlines pilot, and he soloed at Spirit of St. Louis Airport on his sixteenth birthday. He has worked at all levels of airport operations management, and he currently serves on multiple boards and committees around the community.  

When asked his perspective on how the aviation industry evolved and its resiliency in the St. Louis region, he had a realistic, yet positive outlook. 

“It’s very cyclical. It’s going to go up, and it’s going to go down. I’m a believer that out of bad, comes good. I started right after the flood, the flood of ’93. It doesn’t get a whole lot harder than that. We had a partnership with Lambert. Spirit was one of the airports that wasn’t supposed to flood. We had seven hundred and thirty-four planes the day before. We moved them up to Lambert, shut down runways, taxiways. It’s that collaboration. We also reached out to St. Charles County Smartt Field – they flood. We called them and said, ‘Hey, your planes can park here for free.’ So coming out of the flood, I would say the nineties were the worst and best of times for Spirit. And that’s what I mean it gets better. Our tenants pulled together, the industry pulled together.

"The late nineties was a good economy. We developed about sixty acres – one was a flight school, one was a major corporation, another was a brand new FBO. And that happened within a three-year period. And then you have September eleventh. Nobody saw that coming. That was really hard on the industry. But we recovered. And you had the recession. And then we had the tornado at Lambert. People came together to support them. Then we had Covid. Covid was much harder on the air carrier airports than it was on general aviation. But this industry, nation-wide, but particularly this region and this state, people were there to help. When the hurricanes hit Florida, I knew a couple of airport directors there I called to see if we could send help, if they needed anything, what we could do. So, it’s very important that we stick together. We are competitors, but we’re a team. There’s a lot of people’s lives that rely on these airports, their livelihoods, so you got to come back bigger and better.”

Following the Forum, the participants gathered for one more group photo and were interviewed by radio and television media outlets. The Aero Experience thanks Bi-State Development for hosting the event and the five airport directors for giving their candid responses to the topics discussed.