Ths conceptual digital image shows a proposed airport terminal at night in Bradley County, Tenn.Rejected FAA airport identifiers:* EIV* OQP* PMF* PZF* PZW* RZRSource: Cleveland Airport Authority
CLEVELAND, Tenn. -- The Tasso airport site will be a busy place this summer, members of the Cleveland Municipal Airport Authority were told Friday.
"This will become complicated as all the moving pieces start moving," said Ronnie Fitzgerald with the consulting firm PDC.
Construction workers will be grading and paving the runway, installing lights and technical equipment and building the terminal building and hangars, he said. Hangar owners at the current airport, Hardwick Field, could be moving those to the new site, too.
The authority took action on several fronts Friday to get the new site ready by the end of the year.
One step will be hiring a director of marketing and operations. Chairman Lynn DeVault said an advertisement for the position will run March 25 in Cleveland and Chattanooga newspapers and aviation publications.
Other Friday actions include seeking a Tennessee Aeronautics Division grant for some of the terminal's security lights and gates; setting rates for hangar rental space, although those could change later; accepting the terminal design; and advertising for construction bids for the terminal building.
And, just as Chattanooga's airport carries the Federal Aviation Administration identifier CHA and Atlanta's is ATL, an identifier will be needed for the Cleveland facility. An FAA computer generates the suggestions, but airport authority members didn't really like any of the six offered.
Those combinations are EIV, OQP, PMF, PZF, PZW and RZR.
"We should come up with more and ask again," DeVault said.
The abbreviation identifiers must not duplicate others within a prescribed distance. Cleveland, Ohio's airport identifier is CLE.
Given that there are 26 letters in the alphabet, authority member LeRoy Rymer said, there likely will be more choices from the 17,576 possible combinations.