Air Winston-Salem

The failure of Pace Airlines, while a major setback for Smith Reynolds Airport in Winston-Salem, has a bit of a silver lining: It has made clear that the airport is, in several ways, a wasted resource. It's time local leaders developed an aggressive long-term strategy to bring out its full potential -- including increasing its private aircraft business and returning regional commercial traffic to the airport in the years to come.

Two important developments have occurred since CC Air, owned by USAirways Express, stopped commercial flights from Smith Reynolds in 2000 -- the addition of the FedEx hub to Piedmont Triad International Airport, which will create burgeoning regional growth in the new economy, and the proliferation of regional jets that provide direct service between cities, bypassing crowded airline hubs.

Airport leaders are skeptical of the chances of having commercial flights at Smith Reynolds. They back their argument by citing the proximity of PTI, which is itself struggling for customers. And they say the Winston-Salem airport is landlocked, with no room to grow.

"When push comes to shove, nobody who owns an airline has chosen to pursue it," said Tom McKim, the chairman of the county airport commission. He added that "We want to do what we can to encourage all kinds of utilization of that airport … I'm not trying to be a Luddite. If lightning strikes and somebody has a plan for providing carrier flight, we'll embrace it. We have been open to that for a long time."

The Smith Reynolds Airport, named for the son of R.J. Reynolds who was an aviator, has been a symbol of the city's heyday and its "can-do" attitude. The city is regaining that attitude now. And with that progress will come a stronger need for regional flights from the local airport.

The terminal is nearly empty on many days, but it has been well maintained. The runways are ready for more business. And the airport, which sits on county land, is financially self-supporting and has about $1.7 million in reserve.

Smith Reynolds can never be a competitor with PTI, nor does it want to be. The distinction the local airport had in the early 1960s of being the busiest in the state is long gone. By the time Piedmont Airlines, which made its home at Smith Reynolds, merged with USAir in 1989, PTI had long since become the Triad's destination airport, as the Journal's Wesley Young reported last week.

But perhaps an innovative marketing effort, and yes, maybe even some incentives, could attract a regional carrier for business and pleasure flights.

The Piedmont Triad Research Park in downtown Winston-Salem is starting to boom, and it will attract related biotech business. Wells Fargo, which bought out Wachovia, is keeping much of its business here. BB&T remains strong, as do the colleges and medical centers. And other major companies are bound to follow Dell in locating plants to be near the new FedEx hub at PTI.

Those enterprises and others need a strong local airport, one that can be a selling point in attracting new businesses and residents. PTI is a convenient half-hour's drive today, but growth may double that travel time over the next 20 years.

Smith Reynolds Airport is starting a strategic analysis to map its future course, and consideration of bringing back a regional carrier should be part of that effort.

So should increasing business from charter-flight companies and owners of small, private planes. When the FedEx hub cranks up at PTI, it will bring increased flight traffic that could displace some of the charters and small planes. Smith Reynolds could land that business.

It could also recruit an air-taxi service that would be based at the airport. Such flights, which stop at the local airport now, are considerably more expensive than flights aboard a regional carrier, but cheaper than a charter flight.

Smith Reynolds has its share of challenges. The airport commission is looking for a new director, one who can bring a fresh approach to promoting the airport as an economic asset. Landmark Aviation, now the largest tenant, sells jet fuel and repairs, as well as planes. The airport also has a flight school.

Pace, a charter airline and repair service, had been the airport's largest tenant. It let go of most of its 300 employees in recent weeks. Pace's owner, William Rodgers, faces a felony count of failing to pay group-health-insurance premiums for his employees. The U.S. Department of Labor is investigating nonpayment of wages to employees.

Pace owes the airport commission about $890 million in lease payments. The commission is forcing the company to vacate.

The airport commission must find a replacement for the company. Ted Kaplan, a county commissioner and member of the commission, said the building Pace will vacate includes a hangar that can hold six Boeing 737s. "Anyone with a fleet of them will be looking for a place to have maintenance done on those planes," he said.

"We're going to try for the low-hanging fruit first, which is to fill these buildings, put people back to work."

As the airport commission works toward that, it should stay open to all options for the future -- including the idea of bringing in a regional carrier.

Winston-Salem's image is changing. A nationally known biotech research park, a major computer manufacturing plant and a state-of-the-art downtown baseball park -- not to mention a dramatically enlivened downtown business and entertainment district -- once were the stuff of dreams. Our local leaders chose not to wait for fortune to find them; they went after it. A revitalized Smith Reynolds Airport is a natural to join this proud roll of progress.