Doña Ana County International Jetport Manager Jody Young talks with KC Counts about how Wednesday's flight restrictions impacted the Jetport. The Santa Teresa airspace west of the Jetport remains closed without explanation. Here is a transcript of their conversation:
KC Counts:
Obviously, a lot of people were confused and there was a lot of information, both bad and good information traveling around very fast on Wednesday morning. So from your perspective, Jody, thank you for being with us, and tell us, you know, kind of what you've found out this morning, how you learned of issues and how you learned how the jet port at Santa Teresa would be affected.
Jody Young:
So I started getting some texts and phone calls. I was sleeping, like I think part of the country was, but I got awoken to some folks that were trying to fly in and out of the area, and I was informed that there were airspace closures. And so then I went on and just utilized, there are a couple of different systems that I have. When you need to close, let's say, a taxiway at an airport, or a runway. or airspace, there are things called Notice to Airmen, and that's within the aviation industry. That's how it's communicated to pilots. And so I went and checked there and saw that there was a Temporary Flight Restriction in our area. There were a couple of them. And so then I went and on the FAA's website, you can go look up TFRs. And I just clicked on Santa Teresa and it gives the verbiage, it gives the time window for when it's going to be closed and then it gives a pictorial and I just looked at that and in this instance when I looked at it, I had the few people that were calling me at the time, I explained to them that from my perspective, the Notice to Airmen, they did not close my airport. If it did, it would say; every airport has a three-letter identifier ours is DNA Delta November Alpha. It did say that there were airspace closures, but when that's written, airspace is a broad term. It covers everything around an airport. You must then go into the specifics. And once you go into the specifics and you look at what the latitude and longitude that create the box or the shape for the restricted area, I noticed that it was, one of them, was well to the west, about seven miles west of my airport, and the other was a 10 nautical mile ring around El Paso International, and we're further away from El Paso than 10 miles. So we kind of, were in an open area. And so once I realized that, then it was just pretty straightforward that there were two temporary flight restrictions in our region, but neither of them affected the airspace immediately above or within 7 miles of my airport.
KC Counts:
Does that cause added traffic over the jetport because it was kind of a little narrow pathway for folks to go through, or were there not a lot of people in the region?
Jody Young:
Well, so we're really close. I mean, the only way to really create that pathway would be if there were international traffic. So if somebody was trying to fly from the United States to Mexico or vice versa right in this area, then in theory, yes, there would be like a little corridor. But the majority of our traffic is local traffic or it's folks, you know, we have a lot of charter jets that come in from different parts of the country. In theory, yes, it would create a funnel for how the airflow would, how the traffic would need to get in and out of the airport, but it was nothing that, it didn't, there were no safety risks or anything like that. There was still plenty of space. And we had several flights that operated this morning, some that took off and departed the area and some others that were coming into this area.
KC Counts:
So in a situation like this, obviously reversed quite quickly, things back to normal as far as we know, but would the jet port be a place where folks would go to as an alternative in some situations?
Jody Young:
In some situations, I mean, you know, when you look at the aviation industry, and the integrated air system that the FAA controls, you do. I mean, as a pilot in general, almost always when you're flying a long distance on an instrument type profile, depending on the weather at your destination, you almost always have an alternate. So having alternative options in the aviation industry, that is a normal practice. And so, yes, in our region, we would always love, if any of our airports, if there was a problem at Las Cruces or at Alamogordo or Deming, we would always want to be a reliever or provide assistance to any aircraft that are airborne and need a place to land or a place to divert to. If we can support, we'll always try to do that.
KC Counts:
You know, we're hearing possibly a cartel-related drone being the reason for the incident in El Paso, and I know you can't speak to the situation in El Paso, but is drone traffic an issue at the Jetport?
Jody Young:
Drone traffic in our airspace is an issue everywhere. I mean, little kids get them for Christmas every year, right? People use them for construction. Realtors use them for looking at houses. So there are constantly drones flying on a regular basis. I do not have any significant or frequent drone issues reported at our airport. And when I say that, I'm talking like to have a pilot who's coming in to land or to take off and they were like, oh, look, there's a drone right there. I haven't had any of those issues in this area. And most people, responsible drone operators and all, when they're going to operate here, they come get permission and then we could use that same system, that Notice to Airmen system where we would put out and say, hey, there's going to be drone operations in a certain area. Now, these are good people, right? People that fly drones that they have licenses for and they want to keep their license. You always have a certain portion of society who will choose to do things their own way. But 99% of what we deal with around here are, at least that I know of, and I've never had any drone issues reported to me.
KC Counts:
All right, good to know. Well, before I let you go, anything that I haven't asked you about that you think is important for the public to know in this situation?
Jody Young:
No, I think there are, I think generally speaking, I try to see the best in things. And I think that the FAA and aircraft safety has been a hot topic for about the last nine to 10 months. And so I think it would not be uncommon to see folks maybe make more safe decisions, even if we, even if the information turns out different and then we lift something later, I think making an initial safe decision may not be uncommon in today's day and age. Hopefully that would just be something to consider.
KC Counts:
Hopefully this won't become, you know, a super common thing, obviously unnerving to a lot of people.
Jody Young:
I completely agree. Yeah, I completely agree with you.
KC Counts:
Okay, well, thank you so much for sharing that information with us. We appreciate your time and for everyone's reference on the airspace we talked about and the restricted airspace, they can find those TFRs associated with this story on our website. Thanks again.
Jody Young:
Thank you.
