Roswell Air Center

The MRO companies’ process is to acquire aircraft and get them back in service. Or to salvage aircraft components and warehouse them at the Air Center to resell. Most of those pieces have to be certified before they can be reinstalled on an aircraft, obviously, for safety of life. “What we don’t have here are back shops,” says Espiritu, “aviation type businesses that perform certain functions to repair those salvaged components all over the world. From landing gear to aircraft engines, avionics especially, there are currently a lot of opportunities out there to service those parts. It’s a natural fit to bring those type of companies here to Roswell. With three MROs and a fourth one on its way bringing 360 jobs here, we see a real need to be able to support those back shop companies in their scope of work. That would be a tremendous driver for us.” Operations-wise, Roswell Air Center has two runways; the main runway 03-21 is 13,001 feet long by 150 feet wide, concrete, and has enough load bearing capacity for anything from a Cessna up to an Airbus 380 to land. The second runway is 10,000 feet long by 100 feet wide and asphalt, so it can handle anything up to the early 757s. That runway will be part of a project beginning this year with a drainage study and culminating in 2024 with a full runway rebuild to increase the load bearing capacity. The Air Center’s five-year Capital Improvement Plan has been approved by the FAA and includes $51 million worth of infrastructure improvements. Stark acknowledges, “Our goal is to be as first-rate a facility as we possibly can and the FAA has recognized that and has been willing to put their money into our airport. The State of New Mexico also contributed $5 million last year toward infrastructure and we’re constantly in discussion with them about where that goes in the future.”