With record highs in travelers, airports are becoming busier, and now, to combat the crowd, legislators in North Carolina want to turn control of their Charlotte Douglas International Airport from the city, who has run the airport since 1933, to a regional airport authority run primarily by representatives of five surrounding counties, the governor and legislative leaders.
The state Senate voted 33-16 along party line on Tuesday with another vote scheduled for Wednesday before the measure moves to the House.
According to USA Today, since the bill is being treated as a local issue, Gov. Pat McCrory would neither sign it into law nor have a chance to veto it.
An outspoken advocate of the measure, Sen. Robert Rucho, R-Mecklenburg, said, according to USA Today, "the move was needed because the airport is an important statewide asset. That was never more evident than with the near completion of an intermodal freight distribution network linking planes, rail and East Coast ports. The airport-based terminal is expected to create thousands of jobs."
The airport "is a key component to the economic well-being of the entire state," Rucho said.
On the flip side, opponents of the plan argue that having the state take control of a city asset could affect the ability of other communities to borrow to build municipal services like water systems. USA Today states that Majority Republicans opted not to wait until Treasurer Janet Cowell could report on whether transferring control could harm investors who hold about $800 million in airport bonds.
"We're playing with fire. We're playing with real money here," said Sen. Dan Blue, D-Wake, according to USA Today.
Charlotte was the eighth-busiest U.S. airport in 2012 by number of passengers boarded through last August, according to the U.S Transportation Department's Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Its 13.4 million passenger boardings represented a 5 percent increase over the first eight months of 2011.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
