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Writer's pictureJoel Rubin

We Have Our Eye on Our Airport

Updated: Sep 22



On a recent night at Harbor Park in Norfolk, when 10,000 people of all ages, races, genders, and walks of life and hailing from every locality in the 757, crowded the grandstands and concourses to enjoy baseball and beer, I marveled at the scene.

 

Harbor Park is not new (built in 1993) and its capacity only AAA size (about 12,000 seats), but it’s a superb asset for Hamp­ton Roads. The public, es­pecially when light rail to travel there is free, loves it. And it’s not the only edifice that continues to serve us well. Scope and Hampton Coliseum, both in their 50’s, amphithe­aters in VA Beach and Portsmouth, plus con­cert halls, museums, convention centers, a casino and other attractions dot the landscape. And we collective­ly frequent them, Atlantic Park probably the next venue to tempt our time and disposable income.

 

Which leads me to our airport, that is called Norfolk International (NI) but bestrides both that city and Virginia Beach and is actually owned, not by Norfolk but a separate authority. At a recent authority meeting, I learned that ORF, which could use another runway and is hemmed in by water and highways, is still “killing it” financially. A record 5-million passengers will arrive or depart from ORF this year, up 10% over 2023. Breeze Airways now takes us to the west coast, Frontier to San Juan, Spirit to Boston, and more carriers are looking at our airfield beside the Botanical Gardens.



Other airports covet the seasonal mix ours boasts, basically half business in the cooler months, half pleasure in the summer ones. To what do we owe this success? It’s the vast scope of our region, from Virginia Beach (the home or destination of most air travelers) to Chesapeake, the Outer Banks (yes, ORF is NE NC’s airport), as well as Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk et al. Once the expanded HRBT opens and traffic flows more smoothly, expect even more Peninsula residents to come east for Delta, American, and Southwest flights.

 

And NI is undergoing a renaissance, with nearly a billion dollars of improvements on the books. Half will go toward an enhanced departure terminal, a fifth to a cen­tral rental car facility, the balance to the airport’s first on-property hotel, runway, gate and parking upgrades, a new people mover, fuel farm and more. In June, airport and civic leaders broke ground on two facilities, expansion of Concourse A and Federal Facilities Service, critical step in luring real international flights. It’s no wonder that the estimable Mark Perryman, a highly respected industry consultant, came here two years ago to run the airport and is considered a superstar by his regional exec peers.



Every area has at least one principal airport. We are fortunate that ours is so convenient and oper­ated so masterfully with major upgrades and more flight options on the way. Forward Thinking and Future of Hampton Roads, as well as the Hampton Roads Alliance and other visionary organizations, are focused on air transportation and how to utilize and market available resources, most particularly Norfolk International, to optimize their value. Stay tuned.

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