Ann Arbor Municipal Airport is a general aviation airport in Washtenaw County, Michigan, United States. It is included in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2017 to 2021, in which it is categorized as a regional general aviation facility. The airport is located in Pittsfield Township, but is owned and operated by the City of Ann Arbor. The airport property was annexed by the City of Ann Arbor for water rights before Pittsfield became a charter township in 1972. About 15% of the water pumped to Ann Arbor's Water Treatment Plant comes from wells located at the city's airport. Pittsfield Township provides police and fire services to the airport when required. Despite being located entirely within the boundaries of Pittsfield, the township has no voting representation on any committee, council or board tasked with the management of airport operations. The airport is located about 4.3 mi south of downtown Ann Arbor. The airport is a general aviation facility with mostly smaller corporate and private aircraft, with no scheduled passenger or cargo flights. The airport is also occasionally used by aircraft transporting patients to the University of Michigan Health System. The UMHS keeps its Survival Flight helicopters at the airport, but does not keep its fixed-wing Survival Flight jet aircraft at the site because of the lack of 24-hour control tower staffing. , the airport's annual budget was around $800,000, which the city makes by renting hangars and imposing fuel surcharges; the city does not allocate funds to the airport.

History

Built in 1928, Ann Arbor Municipal Airport is a class II airport. The Ann Arbor City Council established an Airport Advisory Committee in 1961; the Ann Arbor city council appoints seven people (full voting members) serving three-year terms, and Pittsfield Charter Township and Lodi Township each appoint a non-voting representative to the committee. Runway expansions have been proposed since the 1980s but have been denied on each occasion by city councils. The need for runway expansion on safety grounds is unclear as purported over-runs were actually off the side of the runway and attributed to pilot error after investigation. The most recent proposed runway expansion project, first floated to the Ann Arbor City Council in 2007, proposes lengthening the runway by 800 feet and moving the entire runway toward the south west corner of the airport (closer to neighboring residential subdivisions). This would not change the airport's classification but could affect the size of the aircraft using the airport. All B-II small aircraft are currently capable of operating on the existing 3,505 ft runway without weight restriction. However, larger airplanes (jets) already do use this B-II certified runway but with weight and fuel restrictions. Any extension to the runway will not change the operation of B-II classification aircraft but will allow larger aircraft (jets in the C-I and C-II categories) to land and operate out of the airport with full weight and fuel. The proposal is undergoing environmental impact studies but has experienced delays because of initial inaccuracies supplied in the proposal, prolonged review by the FAA, and opposition from Pittsfield Township and the local citizens' group Committee for Preserving Community Quality, made up of citizens from Pittsfield and Lodi, as well as some Ann Arborites who view the project as too expensive or unlikely to be approved. On March 24, 2009, Pittsfield unanimously approved a Resolution Opposing Proposed Expansion of the Ann Arbor Municipal Airport Runway. Lodi Township, which is adjacent to Pittsfield on the west side and also impacted by ARB, passed a similar resolution on May 12, 2009. A legal petition has been made to the Secretary of Transportation Washington, D.C. in opposition to the proposed expansion. A plan to reignite this runway expansion arose in 2017.

Facilities and aircraft

Ann Arbor Municipal Airport covers 837 acre and has two runways: The grass runway intersects the paved runway and is used during the summertime. In 2013 there were almost 170 aircraft hangars at the airport. The airport has an operating control tower that is operated by the FAA. The airport is located in FAA Class "D" airspace. There has been a gradual reduction in operations at the airport (both itinerant and local) since a peak in 1999. The airport has two FBOs that together offer fuel, general maintenance, aircraft parking, courtesy cars, pilot supplies, crew lounges, snooze rooms, showers, and more. The Ann Arbor City Council in late 2022 approved a plan to replace one of the FBOs with a new operator by voting to decline the current operator's lease at the airport. For the 12-month period ending December 31, 2021, the airport had 75,200 aircraft operations, an average of 206 per day, consisting completely of general aviation. For the same time period, there were 152 aircraft based at the airport: 133 single-engine and 12 multi-engine airplanes, 5 helicopters, 1 jet, and 1 glider.

Accidents and incidents