For those keeping track of Burke Lakefront Airport’s decline, it continued in 2018. According the Federal Aviation Administration’s number count, Burke had 34,407 takeoffs and landings in 2018 compared to 38,571 in 2017.
A decline of 10.5%. The sixth straight year the plane usage has gone down, and it has dropped in 17 of the past 20 years. (It’s high was 100,321 take-offs and landing in 2000). Consistent drain circling.
One number to pay attention to on this: The city has constantly said the reason it keeps Burke open — and doesn’t do studies of the pluses and minuses of closing it for 450 acres of city-owned lakefront development — is the argument that Burke is an economic engine for private business use. That downtown businesses charter jets to be big players around the country and rake in tons of money for The Land.
Sounds nice, but in reality, not much of that there anymore.
The FAA’s “general aviation” usage category are planes going from one airport to another, and not air taxis or carriers like American or United that sell seats to the public. In 2000, Burke had 51,474 of these general aviation flights, but this year it was down to 13,695. That’s a drop of 73% since 2000.
Some have suggested that if Burke was closed, its traffic could be absorbed by Cuyahoga County Airport in Richmond Heights. The current numbers say that could easily happen. The county airport’s total yearly airplane numbers have dropped by 67% since 2000, and their “general aviation” use has gone down from 43,166 in 2000 to 11,231 last year. So the merging of Burke’s business operations with what the county airport does now would put them at about half of what they had two decades ago.
And only 20-30 minutes from Public Square.
But, again, remember that closing an airport needs FAA approval, and to do that, you need mayors and governors and congressional reps to get the train moving. It often takes about ten years. But none of them are saying anything about this, and if Cleveland wants Burke closed by 2030, it would have to start now.
This article appears in Feb 13-19, 2019.
Corporate Welfare
For heaven’s sake, take a bulldozer to this facility already!!!! The writing has been on the wall for years now. There’s no good reason why some meaningful development couldn’t be placed here on our LAKEFRONT. The present administration needs to get their heads together and make critical decisions that will aid in MOVING CLEVELAND FORWARD and not remain mired in a non-productive “holding pattern” for all eternity. I love my city with all my heart, but PLEASE do something with this valuable property.
Turn it into a chemtrail factory.
The County airport cannot handle all the types of aircraft that Burke can. In other words, the county is not a substitute for BKL. And though Hopkins can accommodate those aircraft it doesn’t mean BKL should close. It is valuable for Cleveland and the whole region. and we certainly don’t need to lose it to have a giant vacant lot on the lakefront. we can’t even develop what we have available for development.
I like Scene. But this article is horrendously misleading. Why report general aviation but not other FAA classifications? Air carrier operations are down comparing 2018 and 2000. But air taxi operations, which are planes that are 60 pax or less–even if on “carriers like American or United”, are up 25% in the same time period. And these are operations, not the numbers of passengers. So yes, there are less one- or two- people flights at BKL, but there are more–25% more—flights with planes that carry up to 60 people. Either this author is intentionally trying to misread the public with selective information OR he has no real ability to cover an aviation beat as he clearly doesn’t get how aviation works. Scene–watch out—this guy will ruin your great reputation.
Funny, if we’re talking about absence of facts and figures, I see ZIP emanating from Scene’s tired, debunked point that by clogging up airspace at Hopkins after diverting traffic from Burke Airport, the land under Burke (landfill that has been deemed unsuitable for any type of development other than for its current use) would suddenly turn into Chicago’s Gold Coast. (And, no, this is not the same as the land under the stadium, Science Center and Rock Hall.)
As another commenter aptly pointed out, “Either this author is intentionally trying to misread the public with selective information OR he has no real ability to cover an aviation beat as he clearly doesn’t get how aviation works.”
Let’s add lack of basic business sense to that: At the very least, why don’t we at least wait until there is an actual developer– or even likelyhood of one — before ramming through downtown with a bulldozer?
There are all sorts of empty lots and buildings — not to mention actual, develop-able Lakefront property — already in the long arduous task of attracting investors. To think that adding to this glut is going to turn Cleveland into some sort of Miami Beach is the ultimate in delusion.
Anyone who thinks Burke isnt currently at its highest and best use has never actually been to this horrid site and experienced the wind, bugs, and smells of this former city of Cleveland landfill, with 45 acres classified as a Superfund site.
As many other commmeters have pointed out, there is no lack of developable land up in downtown Cleveland proper, including a large group of contiguous parking lots abutting Tower City and the Warehouse District. If the proposals for this land cant seem to take flight, how does anyone think that developers will want to build on the land Burke sits on, which has many challenges that most people are unaware of.
First is its status as a landfill. The land is not stable, and the cost to build there is higher than in other places with more solid footing.
Second is the fact that it sits roughly 80 feet below downtown and most importantly the existing sewer system, requiring costly sewage pumps or an entirely separate sewage treatment facility, a cost the amount of development that Burke could command simply cannot support. This grade differential also precludes extending the existing street grid, even if the shoreway and railroad tracks werent there.
Third, the land sits behind two breakwalls that block the flow of fresh water into Burke and also block any views of the open lake for anyone standing on the runways. If youve been to one of the car races or the air show youve experienced this firsthand.
Lastly, the location of the majority of this land is actual closer to East 55th Street than East 9th. This isnt downtown real estate.
I do share Mr Baumgardners sentiment, but not his logic. Burke does have a higher calling, but it isnt a real estate play. If we had the will, it would be one of the worlds best bird sanctuaries. But it would take many millions of dollars to convert the land into a park like the very successful Cleveland Lakefront Nature preserve a few miles to the east. And if Northeast Ohio has anything in abundance, its parkland with over 200,000 acres within an hours drive.
Finally, the take off and landing figures cited by the author are disingenuous, as the figures for 2001 were inflated with practice touch downs that make the current normal level of activity seem like a downward spiral, when it fact its still a significant amount of general aviation, even by historical standards.
I wish Burke could be like Meigs Field in Chicago. But its not. We are in Cleveand we have to play the hand weve been dealt.
PW225 and the rest of you folks…do some homework and a little research. A few minutes of digging will tell you the facts…the author is NOT a SCENE staffer who is covering “the aviation beat” for this publication. He’s a Lakewood freelancer who fancies himself an aviation expert because he’s written about Burke and Hopkins for SCENE a number of times.
He’s also the same Dan McGraw who made a huge splash with his “First and Last Seasons” two decades ago…the orange-and-brown hardcover book about the Browns coming back and about how he came back to be with his terminally ill father and about what a mess Cleveland is because it’s populated by too many boozehounds. His best work, by far. Read it again recently and it’s still worthwhile.
Otherwise, he’s all over the map…he used to write for US News and World Report, but he has also covered many topics…politics…sports…the environment… for many big national magazines, including some well-known ones…and you can look it up. He’s written about a v ariety of subjects…but an “aviation writer” he is not. He’s a freelancer who happens to be writing about aviation. Big difference.
Cleveland Air Schmo–in that case, Scene should label his “article” as an opinion piece as its clearly not news. And if it is news, it like Fox News, intentionally missing key parts of the story. Also by writing crap, then, he is undermining his reputation as a writer. If I were looking to hire someone to write something or for a book or paper and read this, I would never hire him. And if I recall, he wrote similar garbage about Burke before and people called him on it. He apparently either doesn’t learn or doesn’t care.
First of all, I am not the Cleveland Air Schmo…that’s what I called the guy with the byline.
Secondly, if he IS writing garbage (not gonna go there), and thereby undermines his reputation as a writer, your assumption that he doesn’t care is probably quite accurate. What he cares about most is getting paid, as all freelancers do.
Print media outlets hire them to produce these kinds of stories…and they take the asignments to make a living, which is often a precarious one (ask the man who knows…both my wife and I have done the same thing in the past…and sometimes, you get stiffed, or your copy is edited and cut to ribbons until it becomes almost unrecognizable–neither one is good thing).
Finally, have you ever heard that old, old snark about the writing profession? Its origins are vague…and it has been attributed to many sources…but here it is:
“Writing is like prostitution –first you do it for the love of it, then you do it for a few friends, and finally you do it for money. There’s your answer. It’s not about reputation…it’s all about getting a paycheck.
^So what are you saying Dan McGraw is without integrity? He will write whatever just to pay the rent?
Read “First and Last Seasons” from almost twenty years ago. It was written when he was about to turn forty, and after he’d already been a newspaperman and a magazine writer for a number of years, mostly down South and in the Southwest. He covered the OKC bombing and Waco in the Nineties, so he’s not without integrity.
But after his book about the “new” Browns came out, mostly to good reviews, he seems to have dropped off the radar…at least in Cleveland, anyway…his ownhometown. I had to do some research to make sure this writer is the same Dan McGraw. He’s a pretty good writer, but certainly not among the “great ones”…and certainly not very well-known.
And yeah, most serious professional writers do write to make a buck…that’s the difference between a pro and an amateur…an amateur is someone who does something merely for the love of it…writing, sports, acting, whatever. Even the word is connected to the Latin word for “love”…and you can look it up.
I think this airport needs an IndyCar race!
Yes, Burke is landfill and not suitable for building much of anything. It could become a park and we could use a park Downtown on the lakefront. It would cost a lot of money to turn it into a park – where would that come from? We would have to think of that. There’s a lot of planning that would have to go into a park and long-term planning is not Cleveland’s strong suit.
A lot of funny stuff in your articles about Burke, from comparing Cleveland to a town of 4,700 people in Missouri lauding them for closing their airport (which still sits vacant to this day) to not understanding why you saw no GA flights on a foggy day. What makes me laugh is that if your town tried to market Burke even a little, it could become a HAVEN for General Aviation activity. Check out Oshkosh or Sun N Fun and imagine the potential success a major city would have if they marketed towards that community whatsoever.