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Expansion at airports to continue

By Matt Schwartz
Copyright 2001 The Houston Chronicle Publishing Company
Article date: September 18, 2001
 

More than $2.7 billion worth of city airport expansion and renovation will continue despite economic hardships faced by the airline industry after last week's terrorist attacks, city aviation officials said Monday.

But spokesmen for Southwest Airlines and Continental Airlines - the primary carriers at Hobby and Bush Intercontinental airports, respectively - said it was too soon after the attacks and Monday's stock plunge to comment on the projects.

"I don't think that's really been reviewed at this time," Southwest spokeswoman Brandy King said. "Right now, we're just trying to make sure our flights get back in the air and reviewing the safety of our passengers." Houston Aviation Services Director Rick Vacar said $1.2 billion in work is under way at Bush Intercontinental, Hobby and Ellington Field airports, making it impractical to stop or change plans. Projects costing another $250 million already have been completed.

City officials expect another $1.25 billion in work to be finished by 2004.

"We were seriously behind in our capital development program here," Vacar said. "We need it."

That need will remain, he said, even if Continental cuts its flight schedule by 20 percent as it has announced.

Vacar also played down concerns that local taxpayers could be forced to foot the bill for the massive expansion and renovations.

The costs of operating - and expanding - the city's airports are largely borne by the airlines that use them. The debt for some of the projects was issued by the airlines themselves.

Vacar said most of the charges for the capital projects under way will not be billed to the airlines for another two or three years, which he said should give them time to ride out their current economic troubles.

As for the new international terminal at Bush, Vacar said, "We expect there's going to be carrier service here enough to pay for what we've done here. We're not going to be out on a limb here in the city of Houston."

Similarly, Ric Campo, the chairman of the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority's Finance Committee, dismissed concerns that financing of the area's three new sports venues could be jeopardized by an economic downturn brought on in part by last week's terrorist attacks.

The public share of the stadiums' costs comes from increased taxes on rental cars and hotel occupancy taxes.

"The HOT tax, even during recessionary times, goes down and then back up," Campo said. "So we modeled our financing to take that into account. A year or two variation is not going to have a major impact."
 

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