ALAMOGORDO, N.M. — July 27, 2026 —

Of the five city boards and committees submitting Fiscal Year 2026 annual reports for commission approval Tuesday, the Airport Advisory Board’s is by far the most active, documenting a full slate of monthly meetings from July 2025 through June 2026 under Chairman Manuel Gonzales Jr.

The board, created under city code section 4-02-040 to advise the city commission on airport construction, facilities and operating policy, met the first Thursday of nearly every month during the reporting period. Its five current members — Gonzales, Vice Chairman Lance Grace, Erich Wuersching, Mark Werner and Robert Hicks — posted strong attendance across all twelve scheduled meetings, with a handful of individual absences. The board is advised by Airport Manager Troy Orr and liaison Kris Salas, the Community Services Department’s executive assistant.

Runway rehabilitation costs rising

The board’s central preoccupation through the year was the Runway 4/22 rehabilitation project. Early in the reporting period, consultant Delta Consultants was working toward a draft Preliminary Engineering Report, and by August 2025 the board was already pushing to have the airport’s classification upgraded to C3 to secure future federal funding. By February 2026, the estimated project cost had grown to roughly $8 million, which the board attributed to five years of rising material costs. By April 2026, with the FAA’s Fort Worth office reviewing 20-year design options within the PER, projected costs for a comprehensive rehabilitation had expanded further, into a range city aviation officials described as the mid-twenties to $50 million — though those officials also told the board they supported completing the work in a single phase rather than piecemeal. In May 2026, the board directed Delta to submit the FAA’s final design grant application by a June 1 deadline in pursuit of C2 runway standards.

In December 2025, the board also authorized a request for proposals for an updated air service market study to support travel needs tied to Holloman Air Force Base and to pursue Part 139 certification for the airport, and continued refining that study’s scope through the spring after board members flagged wide-ranging vendor quotes. Delta Consultants was announced in February 2026 as the airport’s selected firm for a new four-year consulting contract.

Fees and lease terms revised

The board approved several financial changes during the year. In March 2026, it documented a Consumer Price Index-based increase in the airport’s ground lease rate, from 15.4 cents to 15.8 cents per square foot, while leaving Aero Club monthly parking rates unchanged. In May 2026, the board formalized an increase in commercial air-tanker landing fees, from 30 cents to 40 cents per 1,000 pounds. Members also spent much of the fall and winter reworking standard lease and “minimum standards” language covering flight instruction and flying clubs, ultimately agreeing that a flying-club framework was the best way to preserve non-commercial flight instruction without imposing commercial brick-and-mortar requirements on part-time instructors. In November 2025, the board removed a disputed insurance clause on hangar damage from the boilerplate lease, replacing it with defined rebuild-or-clear-the-site options for lessees; by February 2026 it had also tightened the damage threshold that triggers those provisions to require damage exceeding 50% of a hangar’s insured value.

Monument, infrastructure and other business

The board tracked the F-4 Gateway Freedom Monument through to completion, following its December 8, 2025, ribbon-cutting and a Holloman Air Force Base flyover, with mechanical and paint work confirmed complete earlier in the fall. In June 2026, District 5 Commissioner Al Hernandez appeared before the board to discuss public criticism of city infrastructure spending, and the board highlighted the airport access road as a potential candidate for outside grant funding. That same month, the board rolled a separate $109,000 state grant for an electrical vault design into the broader runway project to create what members called a single “shovel-ready” package, and it affirmed November 7, 2026, as the date for its next open house.

Other actions during the year included accepting a no-cost offer from the Alamogordo Chamber of Commerce to use an automated grant-search tool, applying for a decommissioned Air Force T-38 aircraft for static display, formally recommending that anyone at the airport call 911 in a safety emergency, and repairing perimeter fencing cut by trespassers.

The board meets the first Thursday of each month; its regular July meeting was rescheduled to July 9 this year to accommodate the Independence Day holiday and the second phase of the F-4 Monument dedication.

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