News
Opinion — Dugener: Lansing is the Natural Home for a Consolidated Airport
In a June 14 editorial, the Grand Rapids Press offered compelling arguments in favor of consolidating airports in four Michigan cities – Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Lansing and Muskegon – into a single regional airport. But any supposition that such a consolidated regional airport would be located in Grand Rapids makes little sense.
Lansing is a far more logical location.
Driving to Lansing is easier than driving to Grand Rapids for most Michigan residents. More than 9.6 million of Michigan's estimated 10.1 million residents live within one of the state's 33 Metropolitan or Micropolitan Statistical Areas – its population centers as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau.
And nearly three-quarters of those 9.6 million residents – more than 7.1 million people – live closer to Lansing than they do to Grand Rapids.
That's a significant difference when time is tight – and when gasoline is more than $4 a gallon.
The communities involved are unlikely to agree to any airport consolidation – nor should they – unless it will improve air service for everyone by generating the passenger mass needed to attract more flights, bigger planes, lower prices and increased competition. If the airport's not an easy drive, it will not generate the needed numbers of passengers – and efficiency-hungry airlines will continue to abandon our region.
For the majority of Michigan's residents, it's a shorter drive to Lansing than to Grand Rapids.
It's that simple. It's that sensible.