Am I the only one in Lampasas who finds it ironic that the city manager laments the fact that the Lampasas Municipal Airport fails to be profitable while just discovering that the lease expired four years ago [“Entities look at airport agreement,” May 7 Dispatch Record]? Could it be that the airport doesn’t generate a profit because it suffers from bad management?

Anyone who thinks an airport will generate a profit is seriously misguided; an airport manager generates the profit. An airport by itself is just a facility and like all facilities, it is incapable of generating income without a dedicated guiding force behind it. Since we didn’t even realize the lease was up, I would be inclined to think the airport doesn’t have much of a guiding force behind it.

The airport has changed little since I came to Lampasas 20 years ago. As a general rule, airport income is generated by promoting and then leasing airport facilities, but that assumes you have facilities to lease. When you have done little in the way of capital improvements in the last 20 years, it is hard to expect more than what you have now.

Like any business, airports are grown over time, but in the case of the Lampasas Municipal Airport, time has passed it by. Improvements made 20 years ago would have been generating income today.

I have witnessed firsthand how urban creep can benefit a city airport like ours. As general aviation is squeezed out of larger metropolitan areas, airports such as ours are in great position to benefit, but like any business you have to be in position with facilities ready to go to take advantage of the situation. Never make the mistake of thinking Lampasas is too far out to attract aircraft owners from the Austin metro area.

Running an airport is not a simple task, but all it really takes is someone with a little bit of vision and solid goals. Once the goals are set, you market to meet them. However, without solid goals and marketing, you will never reach the vision, and you will be stuck where we are now -- searching for a lease that apparently expired four years ago.

Timothy P. Mulhall, CW4, U.S. Army retired