The Manhattan Regional Airport Advisory Board met Monday morning and received an update on the terminal expansion project.

Jesse Romo, Airport Director explained that he wish he had better news to share with the board.

“We’re still closing out phase one, and we’re still trying to get phase two moving forward. We’ve identified a couple of issues for phase two that need to be resolved first, and we thought we had them resolved and then a new issue comes up,” said Romo.

He further explained that one of the major issues with starting phase two has to do with apron lighting.

“We have lighting attached to the old terminal, literally attached to the side of the building, as well as, some of the lights are strung on and powered on by the old terminal power. They need to be resolved before we can shut that down, before we can demolish. So we have to provide some sort of lighting.”

Romo said that if an airport brings in some temporary lighting they still need to file a report with the FAA and do an airspace analysis and the timing of it is an issue now. The reports were originally filed when construction on phase one began but with the numerous delays of phase one the reports are now out of date.

“It’s just one of those things that’s kind of slowed down right now between what should have been filed, what should have been extended, what the FAA is going to have to say about it and what other creative solutions we have out there. We’re trying to figure it out and move it forward.”

While they continue to work through the issues Romo remains hopeful that construction of phase two will begin within the next month.