PROVO — The long wait for a fully functioning air-traffic-control tower at Provo's Municipal Airport is over and out.
The tower was completed last fall but sat empty for months waiting for FAA funds to hire air-traffic controllers. Airport administrator Steve Gleason learned last week the money had been allocated, and he told the city's Airport Board Tuesday that the controllers will arrive on June 1.
They'll take up to two weeks to observe operations and then spend a couple more weeks advising pilots, easing them into the process.
"By the first week of July, or sooner, we'll have controlled airspace," Gleason said.
Pilots and officials from Utah Valley State College's flight-training program have spent nearly eight years trying to land a tower for Provo's airport, which is so busy that Professional Pilot magazine in 2002 rated it one of the 10 most unsafe airports in America.
Mayor Lewis Billings initially predicted in August 2004 that the tower would be operational in the fall. In January, he expected it to be operational by mid-March.
The confusion was based on congressional budget shenanigans. Provo's tower was the FAA's No. 1 priority in its 2005 budget for air-traffic controllers, but Congress didn't pass the budget by Oct. 1, and the money wasn't completely approved until January, Gleason said. Further delays at the FAA level dragged out the process.
Serco, the company that manages the Ogden Municipal Airport, also will manage the Provo site. Serco is advertising for controller positions now.
Provo Chief Administrative Officer Wayne Parker said an open house for the tower will be held in June. Officials are trying to coordinate the schedules of Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett, R-Utah, and Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, who worked with the FAA to secure $1.7 million to build the tower.
The tower's construction cost nearly $2.2 million. The Utah Department of Transportation provided $250,000, and Provo provided services worth more than $200,000.
Gleason described the airport as a hornets' nest. With the addition of helicopter-training programs at the airport, there are often helicopters lining both sides of a runway as a plane lands between them.
"We had 150,000 operations a year before the helicopter companies even started," Gleason said. "We're pushing 200,000 now."
The director of UVSC's flight-training program said both his students and the airport crew worked together to build a history of safety, but he welcomed the tower and the controllers.
"It's a longtime dream we've pushed for for about seven years," Rich Crandall said. "It's finally come to pass. Our flight school has grown to 30 airplanes and 300 local students. When all those airplanes are in the air at the same time, it gets very testy out here."
UVSC's program accounts for more than 80 percent of takeoffs and landings in Provo, Crandall said, and student pilots have logged more than 200,000 flight hours with just a couple of minor accidents and no fatalities.
The tower will benefit UVSC students in other ways. Pilots must log three takeoffs and landings to a full stop at a fully controlled tower before they can get a private license. UVSC students have done most of that work at Ogden's airport, with some in Salt Lake City.
"Now they won't have to fly through Salt Lake airspace, which is always congested," Crandall said.
Provo's tower will control airspace in the 4 miles around the airport, which sits on the east edge of Utah Lake just south of the Provo Boat Harbor. Controllers will not have the use of radar.
"That," said Crandall, "is our next dream."
E-mail: twalch@desnews.com