A Sample Feature From Aviation News

JIA – gateway to Jacksonville

Above: Interstate 95 links Florida with Georgia; it also passes Jacksonville International Airport in Duval County. Below: ‘A giant among women…’ at the end of one of the newly-rebuilt concourses. Bottom: For those who have time, rocking chairs have proved a popular innovation in the main terminal. (Photos, Aviation News)

At the southern end of the eastern seaboard of the United States, Florida juts out towards Cuba, separating the Atlantic from the Gulf of Mexico. Most of the popular holiday playgrounds are in the south of Florida – Miami, Orlando, West Palm Beach – but go north and before the border with Georgia is the sprawling conurbation of Jacksonville. Bypassed by most sun-seekers (and by hurricanes), this city is the business heart of the Sunshine State and contributing to the wealth of Jacksonville is a major aerospace component, part commercial, part military. Thanks to Cornerstone, the development arm of the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce, Consultant Editor Barry Wheeler was recently given the opportunity to visit the city and to see what the area has to offer on the aviation market.

TO THE soft sounds of the late jazz pianist Bill Evans drifting from the speakers in the central terminal around resident DJ Roger Glover, passengers at Jacksonville International Airport appeared to appreciate the music’s restful tone as they made their way to the departure gates. Some even had the time to pull up a rocking chair and listen. ‘We plan to put a terrazzo floor in this area’, Aviation Director Ismael ‘Izzy’ Bonilla said, ‘but we’ll keep Roger because passengers like his personal style of presenting light, easy-listenable music which we think presents a calming feel to the building.’ For this first time visitor, that seemed to sum up this busy Florida gateway.
Built in 1967 and opened on October 31, 1968, JIA is one of many US airports currently in the process of undergoing much-needed modernisation. Like many airports, JIA was designed to have departing passengers on the upper levels and arrivals on the lower, ground floor area. Slow to expand, only 2m passengers per year were recorded by 1982 and 5m by 1999. For 2007, the throughput had reached 6.3m. Initial planning for a much-needed upgrade began in 1997 and with five years of funding in place, work began to move the airport onto a more modern footing. Concourses A and C were the first to be rebuilt and are now open, each with ten gates and a more user-friendly approach to travellers. More shops, more seating, improved signage and an altogether brighter ambience combine to improve the experience for passengers. Outside the glass-roofed lounge areas, new concrete parking stands indicate the expected upsurge in air travel, widely-predicted for the future. Concourse B is also to be rebuilt, necessitating much work to allow for demolition followed by reconstruction. Linked by North Florida’s main highways, which give freight operations in particular a useful base for north, south and west transfers, JIA is a 20min drive to down-town Jacksonville where the business and financial centre is the destination for a significant number of the travellers who arrive at the airport.
While small compared with some of the airports serving major cities across the USA, JIA employs around 3,500 people and is served by nine major airlines in addition to ten smaller regionals flying a network of routes linking some of the main domestic centres across America. Low-fare Southwest currently holds the top place for daily flights with 23 departures, reducing slightly at weekends, to 17 destinations. Second is US Airways with 12 per day and Delta with ten. United uses GoJet and Mesa Airlines with their Bombardier CRJ200/700s for feeder services to Chicago O’Hare and Washington Dulles to connect with international flights, while flying south, American Eagle links Miami and westwards it serves St Louis.

Above: Federal Aviation Agency diagram of JIA. Future plans include two additional runways, each parallel to the existing 7-25 and 13-31. No firm date has yet been given for this, but work could begin in 2015.

Below: Overseen by air traffic control, an Embraer ERJ-145 prepares to push back on one of the daily departures to Cleveland, Houston and New York Newark served by Continental Express.

For the rest of this article please see the July 2009 issue.