Good Grief! It's Hangar With an "a"

Good Grief! It's Hangar With an "a"

One of my recent Google Alerts included a newspaper article about an aviation company that received a grant to help fund its new corporate office complex. Part of the project was going to include a "hanger." Yes, hanger with an "e" instead of an "a."

Initially, I was incredulous. How could a journalist (and editor and proofreader) be so sloppy? 

Then I considered that perhaps the writer et al. have never even seen an aviation hangar. Maybe I'm just more sensitive to words that are indigenous to aviation than the general public would be. Could it be that we have an inflated view of our industry and expect the world to naturally revolve around us? Is it really the responsibility of others to know and understand who we are and what we do?

Maybe we need to look within and examine our efforts to educate and inform the public. After all, it is called public outreach, not public inreach. Save for announcements about new air service, the length of security lines and aircraft incidents, the public may not be getting as much information about what's going on at airports as they should be. Or perhaps what we're putting out there isn't in a format they can easily find. 

Educating the public is a never-ending task, and efforts should involve every platform available. Further, we should continuously search for better ways to reach our neighbors and public at large.

Our IT story from Williston, ND, reminded me that there are still creative new ways to educate our communities. Williston is breaking ground on a new airport and decided that the current airport website was not ideal for communication purposes. Using the existing website would have been convenient for the airport staff, but it wouldn't have the necessary impact within the community. 
This new airport is a big deal. It's not a remodeling, nor a new terminal at the existing airport. It's a brand new airport, Williston Basin International Airport (XWA). The project website, xwaproject.com, is designed to provide updates, answer frequently asked questions and offer a portal for vendors to review the bidding process-information that is easy for the community to obtain and easy for media to report on. Seems like Williston is on to something good.         

Cheers,