FAA earmarks $190,000 for Saipan airport improvement

Stressing the value of better transportation facilities on the economic activities in the Northern Marianas, the Federal Aviation Administration has earmarked close to $200,000 for a project intended to improve and rehabilitate certain portions of the Saipan International Airport.

FAA Western Pacific Region Airports District acting manager Daniel S. Matsumoto relayed the good news to Commonwealth Ports Authority Executive Director Carlos H. Salas in a letter from Honolulu, Hawaii late last month.

In his letter, Mr. Matsumoto said FAA has no objections to the architectural and engineering design presented by Winzler & Kelly Consulting Engineers for the conversion of existing asphalt concrete apron (ACP) to Portland cement concrete (PCC).

The conversion project will be funded 100 percent by the FAA which has already approved a total of $190,535 for the initial phase of Saipan International Airport improvement project.

The first bid proposal submitted for the project originally costs $214,707 but was scaled down to $190,535 following studies that some of the soil borings to be used can be provided from a previous geo-technical reports for the same area.

This brought the cost down by about $24,000, according to CPA staff engineer John Sablan in a report previously presented to the Board of Directors in a recent meeting.

The CPA Board of Directors has unanimously awarded the Saipan International Airport asphalt conversion project to Winzler and Kelly, which has ranked the second highest company for all three pending infrastructure projects of the ports authority.

Poised at making Northern Marianas airports at par with facilities from other countries, CPA has been crafting a long-term improvement plan for the Saipan International Airport that includes the expansion of its runway safety zone.

While the current coverage of the Saipan International Airport runway’s safety zone meets standards set by the FAA, CPA executive director Carlos H. Salas said there may be a need to extend the safety zone in the future.

A significant amount of money would be needed to undertake the project, according to CPA Board Chair Roman S. Palacios, explaining that the land adjacent to the Saipan International Airport runway is not a flat terrain, which poses another concern.

CPA’s efforts in drawing up plans aimed at improving the islands’ transit facilities have been prompted by problems relating to transportation which have long been identified to be major a major factor in the apparently stagnating economic activity in the CNMI.

The agency is also looking at expanding the runway of the Saipan International Airport from 8,600 feet to 10,600 feet since its current capacity restricts the facility from accommodating direct flights from the mainland United States, a government report said.

At present, the airport can only receive flights from the closer Asian cities. The facility hosts an air carrier apron that has parking position for six aircraft. With these, it can accommodate expected growth in the tourism industry in the near future even without expansion.

Officials have said, however, that the Saipan airport is too small for direct flights from the mainland US and has only one runway which has the potentials of creating scheduling conflicts especially when the number of international flights increase.

Part of future improvement plans for the Saipan International Airport, aside from extending the current runway to 10,600 feet, is the construction of a new parallel runway with connecting taxiways.