GUEST EDITORIAL BY JASON BLAIR
Officials at Battle Creek Executive Airport at Kellogg Field (KBTL) in Michigan are proposing the airport close its parallel runway.
In a recent remote airport advisory board meeting, the airport’s aviation director discussed a potential plan to remove the airport’s parallel 5R/23L runway.
This runway was added a few years back to accommodate expanded traffic from a growing Western Michigan University flight training program, significant growth from Duncan Aviation, and has also now helped accommodate growth from WACO aircraft.
The advisory board noted that having the extra runway is a burden on their staff to maintain it and that plans are in the works to potentially remove it and redevelop the space with additional hangars.
While this would reduce the workload for the airport staff, it comes with potential safety and traffic concerns.
When an airport has a parallel runway, it can better separate traffic of different speeds and handle more aircraft in a traffic pattern at the same time. This allows more operations to be completed with better aircraft separation on busy days.
During the meeting, Aviation Director Philip Kroll noted that the parallel runway was “nice to have” but not needed, highlighting that WMU is the primary user of the runway.
He did note that “the pattern can fill up at Battle Creek very quickly with three or more planes when there isn’t a parallel runway” but that “there are lots of other local airports that the pilots can go use instead.”
He added that over the previous 20 years or so, the airport didn’t need the parallel runway regularly.
What is missing from the context of that statement is that over those 20 years, WMU, one of the largest collegiate flight training programs in the country, moved all of its operations in 1997 to the airport and significantly expanded its operations with a larger fleet and investment into new buildings since then.
Additionally, Duncan Aviation and WACO aircraft have significantly increased their business operations and the need for aircraft flight operations at the airport over that time.
While Kroll added that removing the parallel runway wouldn’t “hurt the airport in any way,” that question is debatable.
If the runway is closed, it will certainly affect operations and potentially affect safety at the airport if it proceeds.
Closing a runway does not mean the need for the operations goes away. The numerous based operators don’t go away. It means operations are attempted with fewer runways. This has the potential to reduce safety at the airport.
It doesn’t just affect the Battle Creek Airport either. The removal of this runway would reduce traffic capacity and drive traffic to outlying airports, which are not served by towers. This increases operations at airports that do not have ATC services that help reduce traffic conflicts and, potentially, incidents and accidents.
Doing this will surely increase costs for students at WMU’s aviation program who will not be able to train at the airport they are based, having instead to travel to outlying airports to accomplish training.
According to data from the FAA’s Operations Network (OPSNET), Battle Creek Executive Airport regularly ran more than 90,000 tower operations per year going back to 2021 and 2022.
In late 2023, the airport damaged the parallel runway (5R/23L) during snow plowing operations and left it closed until a reopening late in 2024, when some repairs were finally made.
During this time, the airport saw traffic capacity fall to 86,831 in 2023 and 79,260 in 2024.
During the period when this runway was closed in 2024, it was common for students and other aircraft to be told by the Battle Creek Tower, “the pattern is full, unable pattern work.” This forced them to discontinue their flight or fly to some other airport to complete their lessons, increasing the time and cost associated with those lessons.
I personally experienced this multiple times while conducting FAA practical tests at Battle Creek airport.
Making changes like removing a runway affects the entire aviation system when infrastructure is reduced.
The concern here should be obvious. An airport desiring to reduce staffing workload is understandable. However, doing that may have safety and efficiency effects that go well beyond the local airport budget.
The Michigan aviation community is hopeful that the proposed removal of the parallel runway at KBTL will not proceed and that decisions will be made that enhance safety and efficiency, not reduce them.
You can view a recording of the Remote Airport Advisory Board Meeting from March 11, 2025 here.
For more information: FlyBTLcom
