Punta Gorda Airport to make emergency repairs to cracks in main runway

Cracks create concerns at a busy airport in Charlotte County. Punta Gorda Airport has multiple cracks on its main runway, which is only two years old.

There is now a team assessing the damages to determine the cause of the cracks, which are not what the Punta Gorda Airport Authority paid for.

Two years ago, the airport paid to resurface the runway, “And we would not have expected this. There’s some shifting in the pavement,” said James Parish, CEO of the Punta Gorda Airport.

Parish said during an emergency meeting this week that the board approved the hiring of an engineering firm to do a forensic analysis to figure out what caused the cracks.

They must repair the runway right away. The plan is to get started as soon as next Tuesday.

“We do have a seven-day period where there’s not going to be any traffic on that runway. And I’d like to go ahead and do some of the repairs. We’re looking at about a 1,500-ton repair, 7,000 square yards of milling, four inches deep, put two-inch lifts. I’d like to get approval for not to exceed $500,000,” said Parish.

The reason there won’t be any traffic on the main runway is that the airport’s second runaway is in the midst of a year-long makeover.

The two runways actually intersect, and that’s why the airport has an already scheduled seven-day window where no planes are scheduled to take off or land from September 6 through September 13.

The airport says the main runway repairs should only take two days but says until the repairs are done, the runway is still safe for use. If the airport can fix the cracks during the planned shutdown, no flights will be impacted.