Get airlines on the record about costs for new, single KCI terminal

City Council member Jolie Justus has her aviation terminology down pat these days in discussing costly and competing plans to upgrade Kansas City International Airport.

“We are in a holding pattern until we receive additional information,” Justus told her colleagues last week when KCI’s future came up for what seems the umpteenth time.

As chairwoman of the council’s new Aviation Committee, Justus has become the point person for the city’s most controversial project in years.

Should the city build a single, replacement terminal that has all the modern bells and whistles desired by many travelers these days, especially focusing on retaining the beloved convenience of the current KCI?

Or should the city try to just improve what’s already there, bowing to the love lots of local residents have for KCI even though its somewhat dumpy appearance damages the metropolitan area’s image?

Here’s where that search for “additional information” comes into play.

Three months ago the airlines that use the airport came forward at a public meeting with what sounded like a firm, encouraging conclusion for the proper outcome of constructing a single terminal. Surprising some supporters of the current KCI, a representative of the airlines said their estimates showed it would be less costly to build a new facility than to renovate what’s already there.

However, the statement came with no numbers attached.

Correctly so, Justus and others want to see all of those figures — for a new terminal as well as for extensive remodeling — before they take another step toward a momentous decision on KCI’s future.

In a recent interview, she said Southwest Airlines, the dominant carrier at the airport, and other airlines are talking among themselves about this matter.

“We don’t feel they are stonewalling us at all,” Justus said. “The numbers just aren’t ready yet.”

Justus also makes the excellent point that this is the time for the airlines to be putting pen to paper on how much private money they could pump into efforts to remake KCI.

City Manager Troy Schulte concurred that the airlines need to first decide what the most accurate cost estimates are for the improvements they think are essential at KCI, and then disclose them to the public. The city’s Aviation Department is involved in the process, he said.

“They’re working together,” Schulte said. “It’s a long process. But we’re getting there.”

The delay in getting cost estimates out in the open could push the city’s negotiations with the airlines for a new operating agreement at KCI into late 2016. That’s fine with many city officials, who are trying to stay laser-focused on renewing the crucial 1 percent earnings tax in April. Only after that election could a KCI bond issue go to voters, and that could be in late 2016 or in 2017.

All of this intrigue over cost estimates exists for a very good reason: A large number of Kansas City residents don’t trust City Hall in general — and Aviation Director Mark VanLoh in particular — in plotting KCI’s future.

VanLoh tried to rush a “new” airport through the council a few years ago, without sufficient collaboration with the airlines, and he got crushed by the negative public response to that tactic.

His department’s problems were on display again in recent weeks, when aviation officials misled The Star and the public about how many free KCI parking passes the city supplied to elected officials and others.

The city removed a handful of names before releasing an initial list to The Star, contending everything was under tight control at KCI. But a different list showed otherwise, again damaging the Aviation Department’s trustworthiness.

Holding more Airport Committee meetings right now would be a waste of time.

The city’s goal must be to regain public credibility, and then eventually promote a bond issue that would pay to improve KCI.

That cost — in the hundreds of millions of dollars and perhaps exceeding $1 billion — would be paid through charges for tickets, parking and concessions, in other words, by airport users, not general taxpayers. The bonds would not divert money from public safety or other basic city services.

A “new” airport could feature much larger passenger holding areas, improved security and baggage-handling systems along with sufficient eating, shopping and technology features now familiar in dozens of other large U.S. airports.

Still, because plenty of people who never use the airport will cast votes in deciding what happens to it, the question of credibility hangs over the entire process. Mayor Sly James, Justus and other members of the City Council appear to appreciate that, hence the wait-and-see approach for now.

Ultimately, the city and airlines will have to present a compelling case that KCI needs modern infrastructure and amenities and that the best way to do that is by constructing a single new terminal.

This story was originally published October 24, 2015 at 9:46 AM with the headline "Get airlines on the record about costs for new, single KCI terminal."