AOPA Pilot Magazine - April 2015 - 36

PILOT BRIEFING
SAVING AIRPORTS

Happy anniversary, Alliance
Texas airport grows over 25 years
BY MIKE COLLINS
IN THE LATE 1980S, the economy of Fort
Worth, Texas, was reeling from defense
cuts and the associated job losses. At the
same time, the FAA was conducting a study
on airport capacity at Dallas/Fort Worth
International, Dallas Love Field, and Forth
Worth Meacham International airports. When those intersected
with land that had been acquired by a nascent developer, the result
was a new kind of public airport. Fort Worth Alliance Airport
opened on December 14, 1989, and celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary last December.
"The FAA was looking to create a new airport model for the
DFW area," said Tom Harris, president of Alliance Air/Aviation
Services. "Alliance, Texas, was really a vision Ross Perot Sr. and
Ross Perot Jr. had in the mid-1980s," he explained. Perot had sold
Electronic Data Systems, founded in 1962, to General Motors and
used the proceeds to purchase a large amount of land in north Fort
Worth. "The FAA approached them and asked them to consider
donating some of this land for use as an airport."
Ross Perot Jr.-a passionate aviator who flies a Northrup T-38
and a Bell helicopter-had a concept for an industrial airport. He
found an enthusiastic partner in Bob Bolen, then mayor of Fort
Worth, who sought to create jobs that would replace those the
city had lost. Bolen, Fort Worth's mayor from 1982 to 1991, died in
January 2014.
The Alliance name was chosen to reflect the partnership
between the City of Fort Worth, the FAA, and Hillwood-a real
estate investment and development company led by Perot Jr.
"This airport is a great example of a public/private partnership,"
said Harris.
Alliance comprises 18,000 acres in several tracts. The City of
Fort Worth owns the airport-as well as Meacham and Fort Worth
Spinks Airport, a GA reliever located south of the city-and it's operated by Alliance Air Services, a Hillwood subsidiary. On the rest of
that land, Hillwood has constructed some 60 million square feet of
building space-from warehouses and offices to call centers, data
centers, and retail-with the capacity to accommodate another 120
million square feet.
The opening of a large intermodal rail terminal in 1992 opened
the distribution floodgates. Fifty trains of double-stacked shipping
containers per week arrive from the Port of Long Beach, Harris
said. "It's a huge driver of our warehouse development." Warehouse
buildings range from 180,000 to 1.3 million square feet; facilities for
Amazon and Walmart are among the largest.

36 | AOPA PILOT April 2015

NINE BEECH KING AIRS, operated

by the FAA Flight Standards
Service's flight program, call
this Alliance Airport hangar
home (above). A statue of Bob
Bolen, the Fort Worth mayor
instrumental in the airport's
creation, stands below the air
traffic control tower (right).

In 1994, FedEx opened its Southwest Regional Sort Hub on
the field, which sees 20 to 24 nightly flights. Alliance's parallel
runways-currently 9,600 feet and 8,220 feet-both are being
extended to 11,000 feet. Most of the former American Airlines
maintenance base at Alliance was leased in February to GDC
Technics, a San Antonio, Texas-based aircraft modification company. Bell Helicopter trains pilots and mechanics, using a separate
landing area north of the airport for pilots to practice.
In September 2014, Tarrant County College opened a $20 million aviation learning center. The three-story, 163,500-square-foot
facility offers training in logistics and supply chain management
as well as airframe maintenance, avionics technology, and professional pilot training.
Alliance Aviation's staff of 25 provides a full range of FBO services. In addition to line service, the FBO handles cargo charters,
and coordinates Customs services for passengers and cargo. Rental
and courtesy cars, conference rooms, and a pilots' lounge are available. Maintenance is offered by third-party providers.
At its twenty-fifth anniversary, Alliance has grown to 400 companies and 40,000 employees; $8 billion has been invested and it's
had a $55 billion economic impact on the region, Harris said. That
growth includes significant residential and commercial development. "It's a great success story when you think of where we were
25 years ago."
EMAIL mike.collins@aopa.org

AOPA Pilot Magazine - April 2015

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