A New Direction For Morgantown Airport
Dean Marrazzo: Morgantown, West Virginia
With air travel changing, customer needs changing and economic growth becoming a necessity, there has been a big change made at Morgantown Airport. Jonathon Vrable has been hired as the new director of the airport.
Mr. Vrable grew up in a suburb of Ohio, not far from Akron. As a child, Vrabel was infatuated with airplanes and aviation in general.
“When I was younger I was interested in aircrafts, because they were flying above me. The town I grew up in, there was an airport nearby and there was a gentleman that had a bi plane and he used to do his practicing above my house. You would see all kinds of acrobatic maneuvers that he would practice. He got me interested in aviation,” Vrabel said.
This travel craze is not going unnoticed by those in charge of the airport and those who want to see it succeed. The Morgantown Airport is the closest airport for many people in the area. But because of its limitations, these people still need to travel to Pittsburgh or elsewhere for their flights. People are driving to these other airports because Morgantown only has commercial flights to two major cities; Pittsburgh and Baltimore. They just don’t have the option of flying out of Morgantown.
For eight years, Mick Galusky was the director of the airport. Galusky made many changes to the airport and is viewed in high regard by those who still work there. But in a time where travel, of any sort, is increasing at an exponential rate; it is places like Morgantown that can, and should capitalize on this ever growing migration.
A good way to start this internal and external growth process is hiring someone with a diverse background in Aviation Business Management.
Mr. Vrabel’s aviation interest from a young age gave him a clear indication that he wanted to go into the aviation field. To begin his pursuit, Vrabel attended aviation ground school and then continued his aviation education at The Ohio State University. Along with taking classes OSU, Vrabel worked for a local airport/airline doing baggage work, but found himself a bit out of place.
“It was interesting but, you know, loading bags doesn’t really thrill me. Not really what I wanted to do,” Vrabel said.
After working at the airport and beginning his course work towards a degree in the Aeronautical Engineering section of aviation, he came to the conclusion he enjoyed Aviation Business Management far more. Mr. Vrabel’s various experiences and changes in interest are what allowed him to acquire his previous positions and his current position as director of Morgantown Airport.
Coming into this position the first thing Mr. Vrabel is set to do is asses the airport and what its needs are. Although he has only been in the position for a month, he has found a few key improvements that need to be made.
“I think the number one thing is we need to increase our use of air service. We need to have more air service, that’s paramount,” Vrabel said.
Currently, Morgantown only has one commercial airline flying in and out consistently. That airline is called Southern. Southern is a smaller carrier that has a relationship with American Airlines.
“They fly from Morgantown to Pittsburgh or Baltimore. The shuttle to Pittsburgh is very affordable. Its 30 bucks. So it’s really cheap. They also have an inline agreement with American airlines so you can book straight through the American website to wherever American flies,” Vrabel explains.
In order to bring in more air traffic, be that private or commercial, there is a major change that needs to be made to the design of the airfield itself. The plan is to extend the runway 1,001 feet. As of now, Morgantown Airport has the shortest runway in the entire state.
Although Morgantown is a relatively small state there are 37 airports located in its mountains. The biggest of them being Yeager Airport. Yeager is bigger, is the closest to the state capital city of Charleston and welcomes 76,000 passengers a year. But it is not the busiest airport in West Virginia.
Morgantown Airport may be the third largest airport, behind Yeager and Huntington Tri-State, but it is the busiest in the state. Morgantown connects passengers to roughly 1,000 flights every day. With this many flights being connected to, adding this distance to runway will allow a wider variety of flights to use the Morgantown airport itself.
“They have to have so much runway to land and stop. Every airplane when they operate they have to have enough distance to take off but they also if they have to abort a takeoff they have to have enough distance,” Vrabel said.
Airplanes are very different and require different elements to operate. Some planes simply can’t use Morgantown because there isn’t enough runway to take off or land. More importantly, adding to the runway will give more room for emergency stops.
The second most important change that needs to be made revolves around the numerous hangers on the airfield that do not get used. These hangers are very small, roughly 80 years old and in their current state serve very little purpose. The current plan is to knock them down and rebuild them to handle todays air service needs.
“So the new ones (T hangers) are over there, these ones are all about 80 years old, they’re about to come down. That’s where were going to build more corporate hangers and stuff. All that development happens right here. So this is all slated for development,” said Vrabel.
Being that Morgantown Airport is by far the closest to WVU, basically all university travel goes through the small airport. This would seem like a great income opportunity for the airport. As of now though, none of those airplanes are being stored at the Morgantown Airport.
Those planes are kept elsewhere, fueled elsewhere and then flown in to pick up the passengers. This raises overall cost to the University and takes a large sum of profit out of the Morgantown community pockets.
With sports teams, professors and administrators constantly traveling to other universities and cities, it only makes sense their aircrafts be stored in Morgantown. By knocking down the rows of unused T hangers, Director Vrabel is taking the first step in bringing a high volume of corporate, university, charter and commercial aviation storage to the airport.
Overall, Director Vrabel has one overarching goal, expansion. Simply put, there needs to be more opportunities for individuals, corporations and the university to use the airport or it may not be a benefit the city or region have in the future.
“Because if we don’t continue to use it, we will lose it. So we need to focus on using the air service here,” said Vrabel.
