Falcon Field Executes Trio of Airfield Improvements

Years of increasing traffic have made Falcon Field Airport (FFZ) in Mesa, AZ, one of the busiest general aviation airports in the United States, with annual operations now exceeding 400,000. To alleviate associated growing pains, the airport added a new taxiway, relocated two existing taxiways and reconstructed a large aircraft parking ramp—all during 2024. In total, the city-owned airport has recently made more than $5 million in airside improvements, largely funded with federal and state grants.

Airport Projects and Operations Manager Mark Gibbs, A.A.E., explains that adding Taxiway G will help FFZ better utilize its two runways, 4L-22R and 4R-22L. In addition to accommodating its own diverse mix of traffic, the airport is also a reliever for Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) and Mesa Gateway (AZA).

Many of the flight training schools located on the south side of the airport use Runway 4L-22R, the northernmost flight training runway. However, to access it, aircraft had to travel north and cross Runway 4R-22L, taxiing head-to-head with southbound aircraft also trying to cross the runway. This caused congestion, delays and the potential for ground traffic incidents at the runway ends.

The airport has already designed and is planning to construct a new high-speed taxiway for landings to the west (on Runway 22R). It will be Taxiway F.

The recently completed Taxiway G is a high-speed, exit-only taxiway that reduces runway occupancy time for aircraft traveling south, which, in turn, reduces the traffic congestion at the end taxiway that connects both runways.

The new taxiway was designed to bypass that bottleneck and improve the air traffic control tower’s workload. Moreover, decreasing the amount of time aircraft spend idling on the runway reduces fuel burn. “So there are environmental as well as efficiency gains from this taxiway,” Gibbs says.

During this project, the airport also performed work to comply with the latest edition of Advisory Circular 150/5300-13B, which includes a safety measure for taxiway layouts to prevent direct access from an apron onto a runway. To update taxiways constructed to previous AC standards, project designers relocated taxiways D7 and D8 so aircraft on the apron to the south cannot directly roll out onto a runway. “They have to make right- and left-hand turns, which would slow their traffic and hopefully make the pilot situationally aware that they are approaching a runway environment,” Gibbs explains.

Total cost for the addition of Taxiway G and realignment of taxiways D7 and D8 is estimated around $4 million. Work was materially complete but the project was not yet fully closed out at press time in mid-June. FAA and the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) funded the project, and the city of Mesa provided contingency funds of $427,601, which were ultimately unused and will be returned in full.

Airport Director Corinne Nystrom, A.A.E., says extra conversations about funding were needed with FAA and ADOT. “I think like everyone else is experiencing, the bid prices came in a lot higher, and of course we had to make sure we had enough funding to get the whole project done,” says Nystrom. “You don’t want to build three-quarters of a taxiway and leave the rest. The FAA did not want to do that either.”

Gibbs adds that the FAA increased its grant amount and the state increased its match, but he understands that getting similar increases might be more challenging in the future. Both Nystrom and Gibbs expressed gratitude for the federal and state governments willingness to work with the airport.

Construction Challenges

Due to the number of aircraft operations FFZ accommodates, most of the new taxiway work took place at night. The project team was also constrained by the need to maintain the required minimum separation between the two active runways for visual flight operations. “It’s only 700 feet of play, so there is a very small area to do construction,” Gibbs says.

Woolpert, the design engineering firm, worked with Banicki Construction to create a Construction Safety and Phasing Plan (CSPP) with proposed schedules developed by the airport and Woolpert at the time, but Banicki found adhering to that schedule difficult when work moved into the implementation phase. The team adjusted by creating a new schedule based on actual conditions three weeks in advance. As a result, the phasing involved more closures than was initially envisioned when the project was designed and bid.

Another major change occurred during Phase Five of construction, when the contractor realized crews needed to work in the taxiway safety area of Taxiway D, just south of Runway 4R-22L and connecting to taxiways D7 and D8, which were being relocated on Taxiway D, the parallel taxiway there. “We had to revise the CSPP and work with the FAA to get approval for that, so we could follow the construction advisory circular to allow an open trench and excavation to take place in the safety area of the taxiway while that taxiway is open,” says Gibbs.

Permission was granted, with provisos about issuing extra NOTAMS and making changes to the CSPP about barricades, lighting, signage and speed reductions on the taxiway. “We were able to overcome that hurdle and move the project along successfully,” Gibbs reports, noting that the project was already under construction.

Overall, work lasted 250 days and required roughly 1,129 cubic yards of asphalt, which is about 2,200 tons. The new Taxiway G and realigned taxiways D7 and D8 opened in July 2024.

Staffing Fluctuations

The year before construction began, several airport employees retired, including two key team members with more than 30 years of experience each. To compensate, Banicki and an expanded team from Woolpert assumed project responsibilities that would traditionally be performed by the airport, such as developing written procedures for shutting down runway lighting, escorting work crews and scheduling the closing and reopening of runways. “We had to train people so they knew what to do…that was a learning curve,” says Gibbs.

With a total staff of 15 employees (10 administrators and five for operations and maintenance), the airport needed to adapt quickly when part of its usual knowledge base was gone.

A sure sign of success for Nystrom was positive feedback from tenants, visiting pilots and control tower personnel. “When you’re changing something on the airfield, you always wonder how your tenants and users are going to respond to that. It was a good thing,” she reports.

Updating a Classic

Reconstructing the Anzio Ramp (named after a World War II battle in Italy) was another major airfield improvement. The ramp, which covers nearly a full acre on the south of the approach end of Runway 22L along the east airfield boundary, had been in service for 33 years without a major upgrade. The pavement had extensive surface treatment in 2010, but that was the first substantial renovation since its construction in 1992. “For the pavement to have lasted this long in this environment with high UV ray index, it says a lot about the pavement mix design and whoever was the contractor when they built it,” Gibbs comments.

The budget for complete reconstruction is $577,760, and will likely be paid for entirely with state funds (vs. the usual 90% state funding with 10% local match). In this case, the city was only responsible for a contingency of $20,000. Although the project is not fully closed out, Gibbs expects it to finish under budget with $519,132 being spent as of mid-June. Unused contingency funds will be returned to the city’s Airport Enterprise Fund.

Even though the Arizona Department of Transportation is funding the reconstruction, the project was designed and constructed to federal standards. “We want to have everything designed to FAA specifications so we know that everything is going to be consistent,” Nystrom explains.

The ramp’s first major reconstruction was awarded to Neve Construction, a long-time Phoenix contractor that is a first-timer in the airfield sector. Ari Nagar, the company’s project manager at FFZ, emphasizes that safety was the top priority as crews worked just a few hundred feet from the runway where aircraft were taking off and landing.

“Communication is critical, and this project involved a lot of communication on both the technological level and logistical level,” Nagar adds. “We had daily updates and daily safety inspections.”

Using the P-401 asphalt specified by FAA and adhering to its associated quality control requirements were also firsts for Neve Construction. It took about five weeks to get the mix designed, created and approved.

One of the biggest challenges was meeting strict density requirements in the P-401 specs. That required close coordination with the paving crew and also the asphalt plant to make sure that what they were producing on paving day would meet the approved design specifications.

Neve removed part of the airfield fence to create a construction entrance that was close to the project site and allowed access without crossing any runways. “Anytime we had anything scheduled to come through that entrance, we had a flagger there to check who was coming in and out,” says Nagar.

Weather posed another challenge. “Falcon Field is like being in a wind tunnel. It is so different from the rest of the city,” says Nagar, noting that FAA-compliant barricades are different from roadway versions its crews are accustomed to.

The newly constructed Taxiway G was designed to reduce runway occupancy, minimize delays and decrease fuel use.

Laying it Down

The Anzio Ramp covers just shy of one acre, and Neve applied 980 tons of asphalt to achieve the 4-inch pavement thickness specified by project designers.

The process involved paving 2-inch lifts at a time, beginning with a control strip and tests of several joint cores as required by FAA. Additional testing occurred each day of paving, including hot samples, taken as the asphalt was applied, and core samples, taken the next day.

Minimizing the number of joints between paving lanes within the large, oddly shaped area required some strategy. Neve’s equipment could create a paving lane of about 15 feet wide, so it took nine to 10 lanes to cover the widest part of the ramp. Crews took core samples to test each of the joints between lanes and also the cold joints, where cooled asphalt met the new asphalt.

Crews used hand tools to reach difficult areas when paving the Anzio Ramp.

Paving took three full days, but the overall asphalt work took about two weeks with testing. Core samples were sent to two different laboratories—one selected by Neve, the other by the city (as airport owner). Awaiting test results and scheduling asphalt production for the next paving event proved to be a deft dance for Neve. The contractor could not afford to order 500 tons of asphalt only to cancel if test results were either late or negative. With Nagar allotting three working days between each paving date, the project was completed without a hitch and under the $360,000 budget allocated to Neve.

Keeping Up Appearances

Nagar recommends monthly airfield pavement inspections to check for cracking, rutting, potholes, ponding and deterioration that could cause foreign object debris risk for aircraft. Moreover, he suggests driving over asphalt regularly to make sure it’s a smooth ride. “Service life depends on traffic, upkeep, regular maintenance and initial construction quality. I do expect a 20-year life span [at FFZ] with regular maintenance,” he advises.

Based on the area’s desert climate and summer temperatures that regularly top 100 degrees F, Gibbs anticipates needing to sealcoat the new ramp every two to five years. The city’s Engineering Department traditionally assists with this. The airport also participates in a pavement preservation program run by ADOT’s Division of Aeronautics. Every five years, approved contract engineers survey the asphalt, calculate pavement condition index scores and take photographs to document pavement condition. Results are entered into a website database, which participating public use airports can consult to help forecast and model future maintenance and repairs. Management at FFZ also considers feedback from tenants, airport users and FAA personnel.

Not Over Until the Paperwork Is Done

In mid-June, the Anzio Ramp project was about 95% complete, lacking only closeout paperwork and the final engineering report.

Kayleen Cordiak, P.E., supervising engineer for the city of Mesa, notes that the city’s Engineering Department will provide an engineering summary report to accompany closeout documents from Woolpert. Then, the airport will make its final grant closeout request.

“We do want to finish construction of the Anzio Ramp in the 2026-2027 grant cycle, so we will be putting in for another ADOT grant to complete the project in the near term,” says Cordiak.

As the airport plans more capital improvement projects, it will increase estimates provided to grant agencies to avoid more surprises about high bids. “We want to make sure we anticipate projects prices increasing at the right rate,” says Nystrom.

She emphasizes that FFZ is financially self-sustaining and does not receive money from the city’s General Fund. “We have to run the airport like a business…and bank enough funds to pay for operating expenses and our portion of these capital improvement projects.”

The airport has more than 400 city-owned hangars and several hundred tie-down positions that generate revenue to supplement 60 ground leases, fuel flowage fees and other airfield user charges.

A Time of Transition

Nystrom shares that FFZ has clearly been changing for the last four to five years, evolving from a small recreational airfield with flight training and a few businesses to one of the busiest general aviation airports in the United States. In doing so, it is attracting the attention of private developers who see FFZ as a gem that needs to be polished with a few additional amenities. Investments are already being made to build larger hangars that can accommodate aircraft such as Gulfstream Vs, Nystrom reports.

“As we turn the corner, it is absolutely essential that we have really good infrastructure in place in terms of the facility and offering amenities [corporate users] are accustomed to,” says Nystrom. The airport is also working to assure owners of large aircraft that FFZ’s runways and taxiways are safe for them.

The trio of airfield improvements made last year is one large step in making it around that corner.