The Lloydmister Airport Taxiways will be seeing some improvements.
City Council voted on Tuesday to extend the street improvement contract to include the sections of the taxiway. This project was previously budgeted for and was set to come before council at a later date, but was bumped up due to an incident at the airport on the secondary taxiway.
“Due to our wet spring and then never really drying out, the sub is getting a little soft and we had an aircraft being pulled by a tug at the time and the wheel went through the asphalt,” says Airport Manager Wade Frasz.
He adds the aircraft was not damaged. Part of the refurbishing will look at the current drainage patterns and how to decrease water damage. Frasz says they hope to have the repairs completed within the next three weeks, but it shouldn’t cause any delays for passengers.
“It’s very important for those taxiways to be repaired because aircraft props and everything are fairly expensive. They’re usually built between seven and 20 grand, so we want to make sure it’s safe for them to go down those taxiways.”
The cost of the project is $208, 030 and looks to extend the life of the area that will be fixed by 10 years. The rest of the taxiway that won’t be covered under the budgeted amount will be covered in the 2018 budget.