Regional Jets at Friedman Memorial Airport (FMA)- 

The recent Safety Management System (SMS) review resulted in the FAA approving regional jet-type aircraft (RJ) operations at Friedman under the existing Letter of Agreement with the control tower. The FAA has made a determination that for commercial scheduled RJs to operate at Friedman, an Environmental Assessment (EA) be completed. SkyWest Airlines has made a request to the FAA to modify their operations specification (ops-spec) to fly CRJ700s at Friedman, thus triggering a CRJ700 specific EA.

New Updates:

• On September 6, Airport staff received comments from the FAA on the Draft Environmental Assessment and the 30-day public review process will begin September 12.
• The Draft Environmental Assessment will be available for viewing at Sun Valley, Hailey, Ketchum, Bellevue and Carey City Halls, the Hailey and Ketchum libraries, online at www.flyfma.com and at the Airport Manager's office by Wednesday, September 12. This will also be announced in the September 12 issue of the Idaho Mountain Express. 

Improvements to Friedman Memorial Airport - The FAA has told us that FMA has design deficiencies that, if not remedied, could result in the reduction or elimination of some air service. As such, the FMAA has instructed airport staff to work with the FAA to explore what fixes can be made at the existing airport.   The FAA's Northwest Mountain Regional Office has determined the next steps are to execute a technical analysis of possible alternatives to provide a safer airport for the aircraft that use the airport currently (C-II and C-III).

 New Updates:

• Work is underway on the Airport Alternatives Technical Analysis effort.  
•  Our engineering firm, T-O Engineers, is completing work to document the existing situation at the airport and to re-evaluate the"full-compliance" options at the site.  Next steps include development of alternatives within the existing airport fence.
• The Alternatives Report to be submitted to the FAA on November 6.

Previous Updates:

• Scope of Work for the Alternatives Technical Analysis has been approved by FAA was approved by the Board at the August 7 FMAA meeting.
• The purpose of this analysis is to investigate possible alternatives to provide a safer airport for the aircraft that use the airport currently (C-II and C-III), as well as to collect and present data to the Seattle Airports District Office.
• Methodology:
• Develop alternatives and costs
• Consider full design compliance and other potential alternatives
• Use data from previous studies, as much as possible     (Evaluation and selection of alternatives is not  included in this scope of work)
• There are two scheduled updates midway through the process. They will likely take place at FMAA meetings in the fall.

Pursuit of a replacement airport -  A replacement airport is likely the best long-term solution for this community.  Critical components in the replacement airport process would include evaluating operational feasibility, identifying additional or new funding sources, and locating a feasible site and building community support.