The Cleburne Regional Airport recently installed more than 35,100 square feet of fresh concrete to repair the apron of one of its hangars to meet the growing demand and use at the facility.
This project is one of the first in planned airport repairs and upgrades to meet today’s demand on the facility. The apron is the area where aircraft are parked, loaded, fueled, and boarded. The apron for hangar 1000 was built in 1988 and over the years had thinned from use, unable to meet the demands of today’s jets and planes.
“In previous years Cleburne did not have many of the midsize to larger jets operating out of the airport,” Airport Manager Sharlette Wright said. “We have had more transient jets and now have eight jets based here and it became apparent if we did not reconstruct the apron soon, that an aircraft could be damaged.”
Wright said business at the airport continues to grow. There are about 100 aircraft based at the airport, which averages 60-70 operations a day with approximately 20,000 operations annually. There are five businesses that operate at the airport and 98 people on a waiting list for hangar space. Business from the airport provides many benefits to the city such as sales tax and connectivity.
The city used a grant from the Federal Aviation Administration to partially fund the $601,000 project. Due to the age of the airport’s pavements, the city is already planning more rejuvenation projects including reconstructing the runway and taxiway and the other hangar aprons in need of construction.