Port Fourchon taxiway coming

Aircrafts landing South Lafourche Leonard Miller Jr. Airport will soon be able to leave the runway quicker and taxi along pavement that runs parallel to the landing strip.

Construction began on the parallel taxiway a month ago; the area has been excavated and sand will soon be brought in to set the foundation, airport manager Joe Wheeler said. The project, which carries a price tag of $4.8 million, should be complete some time next summer.

Ninety-five percent of the funding was granted by the Federal Aviation Administration, with the state and the Greater Lafourche Port Commission making up the difference, Wheeler said.

The airport currently has a taxiway in place, but it only runs about halfway along on the runway on the north end. The current setup requires planes to land, launch and taxi on the airport’s lone 6,502-foot runway. It is an uncontrolled, or Class G, airspace, which means the onus is on pilots to communicate with each other to prevent any accidents.

The taxiway will both reduce the potential of crashes and increase the potential of traffic, Wheeler said.

“It increases capacity for the airspace, allowing more traffic to flow in and out of the airport, which is not exactly needed right now for that issue, but it is forecasted for us to be needing that extra capacity,” Wheeler said. “Mainly, right now, it’s a huge safety issue that we’re being able to get rid of.”

The airport also secured a $250,000 grant from the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development for a glide slope antennae, which, when installed, offer pinpoint landing directions to pilots as close as 200 feet away with a half a mile of visibility, Wheeler said.

The airport is averaging about 1,100 operations per month, up from 650 in May. Wheeler credited an increase offshore energy exploration permitting and sound marketing strategies, which have resulted in more planes stopping in transit for fuel, for the increase.

“Our traffic is rising, and it will continue to rise,” the airport manager said.