Words like recreation, education, training, charter flights, business travel, and maintenance all came up as DeKalb Taylor Municipal Airport Manager Renee Riani spoke at this week’s Rotary meeting. Riani, an aviation graduate of Purdue University, became airport manager two years ago. She was no stranger to the airport having spent time as an aviation instructor for the Kishwaukee Education Consortium (KEC) which maintains classroom and airplane simulator facilities at the site. Although she originally envisioned a career as a pilot, she found her career took her on a path of being a flight instructor and then spent time in marketing and management for DuPage Airport.
Although there are no regularly scheduled commercial flights at the DeKalb Airport, Riana went through an extensive list of aviation related activities that can be found on the property since it is categorized as a General Aviation Airport. These include several types of flight school programs in addition to the KEC offerings. One of their tenants does skydiving instruction for the military. There are several maintenance operations, serving both public and private aircraft. Charter and corporate flights are also part of the mix. For example, Target Corporation is a frequent user because of their large distribution operation in DeKalb and the NIU basketball team flies out of the airport for certain games (although the more elaborate needs of the football team prevent their use of the facility for the time being). A recent addition to the airfield is the ComEd helicopter unit used for aerial repairs of high voltage power lines.
Revenue for airport operations comes from fuel sales plus lease of city-owned hangers and support buildings on the property. The city also leases some land to companies who then build their own structures on site. Riani believes the economic recovery from Covid should put airport operations on break-even basis. Dollars from the Federal Aviation Trust Fund have been used for a $4.8 million refurbishing of the 25-year-old north-south runway system (the original runway layout was from east to west). Next in line is use of Federal dollars for rehabbing the adjacent north-south taxi-way system keeping the airport a vital part of economic activity in the region.