May 22--NEDERLAND -- Waiting for flights at Southeast Texas Regional Airport for the past seven months has been a cozy experience, and some might call it cramped.
Phyllis Clark, a Southeast Texas native, has used the airport twice since Hurricane Rita turned the main terminal into a disaster zone. At the Jerry Ware terminal, which was modified to serve both general aviation and commercial flights after the storm, she had a little less elbow room than she would like.
"This one's pretty rustic," Clark, 56, said, as she prepared to fly home to Colorado Springs, Colo., last week after a visit with her mother in Orange. "It never was a real fancy airport, but it was better than this."
Authorities still have no firm timeline for reopening the main terminal of the airport that the county owns and operates. Damage to the main building, hangars and other county property on site totaled about $13.8 million. Insurance and federal dollars, both from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Federal Aviation Administration, are expected to cover much of the repair cost.
Rather than just rebuilding to what it was before, Airport Manager Hal Ross has approached this as an opportunity to turn the terminal into what it should be in the future.
"We are going to reconstruct it. We feel like we'll have sufficient finances. We just want to do it in a conscientious way," Ross said. "I think we'll have a better product when we get through."
Ross said the airport handles about 130 passengers a day, or about 3,900 a month. In April 2005, before Delta pulled out, more than 4,600 passengers flew out of the airport, compared with 3,386 in April 2004.
The 50,000-square-foot Jerry Ware terminal opened in 1981 when the county assumed four to five airlines would use the space, Ross said. In the past 25 years, point-to-point air service has faded and been replaced by the hub system, which means less business for small airports such as Southeast Texas Regional, Ross said.
Continental, offering a connection to George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, is the only commercial carrier now, though local officials still hope to attract a Dallas connection.
More stringent security requirements also accompany commercial air travel today. The redesigned terminal should provide adequate space for security staff and equipment and could open part of the building for a restaurant, retail vendors or even office space, Ross said.
"We don't want to have excess space," Ross said.
The county has asked design firms to submit qualifications to handle the redesign. Those submissions will be opened today, and county officials will begin selecting a firm.
A cost estimate is due in late July so that Ross can submit a grant application to the FAA by Aug. 1.
He declined to estimate when construction would start or how long it would take.
Ross said he expects to ask the FAA for $6.5 million to cover the main terminal and other damaged property. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta visited the airport less than a week after Hurricane Rita and committed to providing federal help to rebuild.
The terminal still looks much as it did then. On Friday, sunlight shone through two holes in the wall onto the still-damp carpet of what was a passenger waiting area. Clumps of marsh grass rested atop the moldy blue carpet, along with crumbling ceiling tiles and the remains of stretchers used in a massive medical evacuation from the airport in the two days before Rita hit.
The military aircraft carrying Southeast Texas patients that pulled away from the terminal about eight hours before the storm made landfall was the last flight to use that section of the airport.
Continental resumed flights from the revamped Jerry Ware terminal about three weeks after the hurricane. Car rental companies and Airport Travel, an agency operating from the airport for more than 20 years, also have space in the smaller terminal.
Airport Travel owner Gail Shook said she and her staff have adjusted.
"We don't even think about it. We're at home here. You make do," Shook said.
Steve Wooten, a chemical plant operator from Sour Lake who was waiting for a flight last week, said he does not mind the small terminal. He used it years ago before the main one opened.
"Just as long as the plane's safe is all I care about," Wooten, 53, said.
His son, Steven Wooten, 26, said the closed terminal was "a whole lot nicer."
"There's a lot more room," he added.
The temporary space is not the worst he's ever seen, mentioning a Lubbock airport he used several years ago.
"This is a palace compared to that," the younger Wooten said.
Along with the terminal redesign, the airport is in the midst of creating a new master plan with a community advisory committee.
Jim Rich, Greater Beaumont Chamber of Commerce president, serves on the committee and has been involved in efforts to secure commercial air service to Dallas. Rich said he and his colleagues on the local coalition have not given up on a Dallas connection.
"With all the construction and industrial expansion that we're facing in the next couple of years, it's not unrealistic on our part to take another shot at somebody like American Eagle," Rich said. "We've got to convince them that there's the business market. They're not interested in personal travel or leisure travel. They're interested in business travel and how we're going to fill those planes."
Business travelers bring in more money for airlines, Rich said, because they tend to buy tickets on a shorter timetable than leisure travelers.
As the master plan develops, community members will be asked to share their ideas, Ross said. Meetings for community input have not yet been scheduled.
