Changes, expansion on horizon at airport

Mustang Beach Airport in Port Aransas continues to expand and make improvements. Facilities at Mustang Beach Airport are expected to expand significantly with agreements reached recently between the City of Port Aransas and the Texas General Land Office.

The Port Aransas City Council in September voted to approve signing a newly renegotiated lease with the GLO to increase the size of the airport and to give the city new powers to work with private partners to add amenities that a survey has shown pilots desire.

With the new lease, the airport property will expand to include 23.2 more acres.

The added acreage could be where new airport hangars and other development would occur under a partnership between the city and Texas Aviation Partners of Austin.

Recent improvements at the airport include AWOS, an automatic weather service for pilots that will give local weather with a phone call, and a navigation system that’s almost as good as the high-dollar Instrument Landing System used by commercial airports. The new system will let fliers navigate to within 265 feet of the ground in cloudy or rainy weather; previously they could only legally descend to within 1,500 feet off the ground in inclement weather.

That’s important to people who might contemplate flying to Port Aransas for a vacation or for a weekend, because they can now leave Dallas or San Antonio and come directly to Port Aransas. The city and the aviation division of the Texas Department of Transportation have partnered to provide an additional $300,000 in paving and drainage improvements to increase transient aircraft parking over the last three years, with $100,000 worth in new paving, drainage and beacon improvements scheduled to be finished this year.

The Port Aransas City Council has made airport improvements a priority and has given the facility its own section in the city’s comprehensive plan.

City staff is working with Texas Aviation Partners to develop a business plan and layouts and to schedule private and public improvements at the airport. The city also plans to obtain additional state and federal funds to triple its annual grant funding for the airport, with the help of matching funds provided by the public/private partnership, according to Port Aransas City Manager Michael Kovacs.

As aviators have become more familiar with Mustang Beach Airport, support for the improvements has grown.

Additions that are in the planning stage include new hangars and taxiway improvements.

The airport is ready to welcome visitors who fly in for a month, a weekend, or lunch.