Fact Checks
Expanding the ASE airfield for bigger planes is a complex and politically charged issue that requires clarity to help the public and County leaders discern fact from fiction. These are our Top Ten fact checks. For a comprehensive, in-depth review, please click here.
We have no choice: the FAA requires us to expand the ASE airfield to accommodate bigger planes.
STATEMENT #1
ASSESSMENT
FALSE
The FAA specifically told the BOCC, twice (see videos here), that the ASE airfield can stay as it is if the County gives up future FAA discretionary grants and stops its longstanding requests for bigger planes (for example, in its forecasts).
CORRECTION
ASE is unsafe, and an expanded airfield with a wider runway would be safer.
STATEMENT #2
ASSESSMENT
FALSE
ASE is FAA-certified safe right now with the agreed 95-foot wingspan limit. ASE needs a redesigned airfield only if the County continues to call for planes with larger wingspans and greater weight. No analysis has shown this would improve safety. Through 2022, ASE had 124 Federally investigated accidents or incidents. None injured any airline passenger. The 36 fatal flights and 120 deaths all involved private planes. No one has ever died anywhere in a crash of a CRJ700 jet—the aircraft now providing all of Aspen’s commercial airline service.
CORRECTION
If the ASE airfield isn’t expanded for bigger planes, United will pull out, we will lose commercial service, and ASE will become a private-only airport.
STATEMENT #3
ASSESSMENT
FALSE
ASE is the most profitable US airport per passenger-mile for United and a lucrative destination for all commercial carriers. Their service is popular and highly valued. We can therefore count on the commercial airlines to continue service at ASE, which won’t become private-only. And our airlines haven’t asked for bigger planes; they prefer the reliable and rugged planes they have.
CORRECTION
FALSE
STATEMENT #4
If we don’t expand ASE for bigger planes as the FAA wants, they will downgrade ASE.
ASSESSMENT
The FAA told our BOCC, “The FAA doesn’t downgrade…..Obviously we’re…interested in [maximizing aviation] access. We’re not interested in going backwards.” A Google search reveals not one example of the FAA downgrading an airport. Downgrading ASE would prohibit 12 popular business jets, one-third of the total, that currently operate at ASE. That’s why the FAA has not threatened to downgrade ASE.
CORRECTION
FALSE
STATEMENT #5
If we don’t expand ASE for bigger planes as the FAA wants, they will close ASE.
ASSESSMENT
The FAA has never threatened to close ASE, which would make no sense whatsoever. ASE is the third-busiest airport in Colorado, serving one of the nation’s most lucrative destinations and influential communities. The FAA seeks to increase aviation, not strangle it.
CORRECTION
MISLEADING
STATEMENT #6
If we don’t relinquish our Modification of Standard and comply with the FAA’s ADG III standards—which would expand ASE for bigger planes—the FAA will cut off funding and take back the grants they’ve already given to ASE.
ASSESSMENT
ASE has 85 Modifications of Standard, not just the one about the separation between our runway and taxiway, so ASE will likely never be fully ADG III compliant and the FAA isn’t asking for this.. There’s no Federal policy requiring it, even though the FAA does prefer standardization. Also, the FAA has not threatened to take back grants already spent; it dismissed that idea. The FAA has only threatened to withhold future discretionary grants if we don’t allow our airfield to be expanded. See also #1 above and #7 below.
CORRECTION
Losing FAA discretionary grants would severely hinder ASE development, making it impossible to fund a new runway and terminal without burdening local taxpayers.
STATEMENT #7
ASSESSMENT
FALSE
A better not bigger ASE—with a promptly rebuilt runway and a new doubled-size terminal—could be financed just by the new guaranteed payments from the airport’s FBO, needing no FAA discretionary grants. See our analysis here.
CORRECTION
TRUE
STATEMENT #8
ASE is vital to the economy of Pitkin County and the Roaring Fork Valley.
ASSESSMENT
This is why Aspen Fly Right advocates building a better but not bigger airport. Better, with a rebuilt runway and a new terminal, but not bigger because allowing larger planes at ASE would bring more pollution, noise, and crowding to our home. We need better. We don’t need bigger. They’re different.
CORRECTION
FALSE
STATEMENT #9
Expanding the ASE airfield is urgent because SkyWest’s CRJ700 jets will retire imminently, and ASE could lose commercial air service.
ASSESSMENT
This decade-old fiction was cited by the County, and briefed to the BOCC and the ASE Vision process, to conjure a need to expand the airfield for bigger planes. Yet in 2022, the County’s lead aviation consultant and the CRJ700’s provider both said the plane will operate for another 20–30 years. In addition, the CRJ700’s official replacement, the Embraer E175, fits ASE’s 95-foot wingspan limit, so it needs no new airfield layout. United Airlines plans to start phasing in brand-new E175s in December 2024. If successful, that switch will make CRJ700 lifetime irrelevant to ASE. Pilot contract rules will require each displaced CRJ700 to transfer to other routes, where they’ll be warmly welcomed, having been built only in 2010.
CORRECTION
UNCERTAIN
STATEMENT #10
Rebuilding the failing ASE runway without moving it to let in bigger planes would cause the FAA to revoke the 1999 Modification of Standard, leaving ASE with no approved Airport Layout Plan (ALP) or access to FAA funds.
ASSESSMENT
This new County-elicited threat may be within the FAA’s broad powers, but is neither logical nor credible, and would invite political and legal challenge. It would cancel a successful quarter-century arrangement for minor gains (letting in bigger planes the airlines haven’t asked for, plus 1.4% more business jets in 2042, plus an unknown number of bigger, old, dirty, noisy private jets). The FAA is charged to respect local laws and rules. Working with our community on a sensible resolution—as was reached in the 1995 curfew dispute—would be far more rational and in everyone’s best interest.