BLAINE, Minn. – On May 5th the Anoka County Blaine Airport control tower will no longer be in service, leaving pilots on their own when it comes to coordinating more than 200 takeoffs and landings that occur everyday at the Anoka County Blaine Airport.
“Instead of having a tower there to positively control landings, there will be a switch to a radio frequency that all pilots in the area will use to safely land their aircrafts,” explained Melissa Scovronski of the Metropolitan Airports Commission.
The Metropolitan Airports Commission learned last week of the impending closure of the tower and while MAC runs the airport this decision was out of their hands.
“We’re disappointed they[the FAA] chose Anoka County Blaine Airport,” said Scovronski, “We hope they can look at that again and have a more equitable method for deciding which to close and which to stay open.”
The Anoka County Blaine Airport is home to two full service operations in Key Air and Cirrus Flight Operations and this tower closure could have an impact on their business.
However, this is not the first time the Blaine airport has been without tower services, in fact at a time that the airport with much busier it operated without a tower in place. The airport used to serve 200,000 operations annually compared to today’s figure of 80,000.
The sequester cuts are locked in place until September 30th, which is the end of the federal government’s fiscal year. It is possible that funding for the tower will be restored at that time but this does have the possibility to be a permanent closure.
“Over time we want to make sure we have the best facilities for pilots and corporations to use, we hope to re-open as soon as possible,” commented Scovronski.
The MAC will continue to have discussions with the FAA regarding the closure of the tower in the hopes of persuading the FAA to restore the funding.
Besides the Anoka County Blaine Airport the only other airport in Minnesota to lose its tower services is the St. Cloud Regional Airport.
