FAA considering closing RIC’s air traffic control tower during overnight hours

Federal Aviation Administration officials are contemplating closing the air traffic control tower at Richmond International Airport during the overnight hours of midnight to 5 a.m., but airport and airline officials – and Virginia’s two U.S. Senators – are urging them to reconsider.

The plan seemingly would be designed in part as a cost-savings measure by the FAA (triggered by low operations numbers during those five hours, according to RIC spokesman Troy Bell) but could have a number of possible negative repercussions for the airport.

“Obviously the airport and our airline operators oppose this,” Bell said. “We grant that it is an off-peak period, but even the level of operations that happen during that period are significant. Ultimately, we think it’s a safety concern."

Though flight totals during overnight hours are low, closure of the control tower overnight:

• would require that any delayed flights arriving during those hours be served by off-site air traffic controllers based at the Potomac Consolidated TRACON (Terminal RADAR Approach Control) in Fauquier County;

• could impact flights that otherwise might be diverted from other airports to RIC for weather reasons, potentially preventing them from landing at RIC after midnight;

• would halt certain overnight ground traffic efforts at the airport – such as maintenance and aircraft re-positioning – that often occur between midnight and 5 a.m. and that require assistance from air traffic controllers on site, according to Bell.

• would prevent officials from effectively coordinating early morning flights out of RIC – another process that requires the efforts of those physically located in the control tower.

“There are ground control concerns that the local tower could support but others could not,” Bell said.

He wouldn’t speculate specifically about how such a closure might impact flight schedules or jobs at the airport but said that a possible reduction in flights was “certainly a concern” and that it “would have to translate into [some job loss].”

RIC is home to eight airlines and four cargo carriers, and it also serves law enforcement, federal and private air traffic operations. The air traffic controllers who work at the tower are employed by the FAA. Information about how many controllers work in the tower wasn’t readily available, and Bell said he didn’t know.

During a virtual meeting hosted Oct. 1 by the FAA’s Safety Risk Management Panel, airport officials and other RIC stakeholders (including airline representatives) overwhelmingly urged officials to keep the tower open around the clock, according to Bell and Virginia’s U.S. Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine.

“We understand that the FAA’s proposal has been met with strong opposition from the Richmond Airport, passenger airlines, cargo carriers, the fixed base operators, the air traffic controllers at the Airport, and other stakeholders,” Kaine and Warner wrote in a joint letter Wednesday to FAA Administrator Stephen Dickson in which they urged Dickson and the agency to reconsider. "With passenger airlines and cargo aircraft taking off and landing at the Richmond airport and maintenance crews and other workers having to be on, or crossing over, the airfield during these hours, the need to ensure safety requires that the Control Tower continue to be operational on a 24/7 basis."

In their letter, Warner and Kaine asked Dickson for a briefing about the matter before any action is taken. The next steps in the FAA’s process, and a potential timeframe for a final decision, are unknown.

The FAA first weighed overnight closure of the RIC tower in early 2020, Bell said, at which time it was considering closing it from midnight to 7 a.m. That plan didn’t materialize.

The tower has been open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for decades, Bell said.

“I can’t remember when it was not [open], and I’ve been here more than two decades,” he said, adding that from what airport officials can tell, “this move is not supported by [air traffic] controllers” at RIC or elsewhere in the state.

Wednesday’s letter from Warner and Kaine came on the same day they announced that new funding totaling nearly $400 million will be designated for Virginia’s 47 airports during the next five fiscal years, as part of the infrastructure deal signed by President Joe Biden last week. That money includes about $35.6 million for RIC.

During the month of October, there were a total of 8,855 takeoffs and landings at the airport, according to data from the FAA’s Operations Network.