FWA is Suite

Last summer, staff at Fort Wayne International Airport (FWA) prepared a proposal for a grant under the USDOT Small Community Air Service Development (SCASD) program. The proposal requested federal funds to upgrade the existing electronic infrastructure to create a more efficient use of airport assets. In September of 2010, FWA was notified it had been selected for a SCASD grant to implement SUITE, Shared Use Information Technology Environment. 

In its application FWA states, “The implementation of such a system will ultimately lead to cost reduction and facility efficiency. Shared use allows for infrastructure flexibility for airline co-location, and cross utilization of gates, allowing for expansion when necessary and contraction when needed. Having this flexibility will provide the cost savings needed to allow markets such as FWA to be more economically feasible, particularly during periods of reduced demand.”

Furthermore it was stated that, “Shared-use facilities provide savings to both airports and airline partners” and “allow the airport operator to use existing space more efficiently, thus increasing airport capacity without necessarily constructing new gates, concourses, terminals or check-in counters.”

Implementation of SUITE was completed last month and all indications are that the product will work as anticipated, allowing all the airlines that service FWA to operate from any available gate. So even though you may still see Delta flights primarily at Gate 5 and American Airlines typically using Gate 8, those flights could also operate at Gate 6 or 2. This flexibility will help alleviate constraints when irregular operations occur such as weather conditions that require FWA to accept diversion aircraft.

FWA is at the leading edge of the airport community by implementing SUITE, and it was the first airport to be awarded a SCASD grant for such an innovative approach to operations. So even though you may not notice a change at FWA, the airlines seem to have gained more gates and therefore passengers should benefit from enhanced efficiency.  

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www.smdairport.com, www.flyfwa.com, www.fwairport.com.