Says It Will Not Renew Sublease With World Skydiving Center

The city of Kenosha, WI has asked the FAA to support its attempt to ban skydiving at Kenosha Regional Airport (KENW) because its contract controller has said the activity conflicts with other traffic at the airport, particularly corporate jets.

The Kenosha News reports that Mayor Keith Bosman has said that the city has notified SSR Properties, which leases space to World Skydiving Center at the airport, that the city will recommend that the skydiving company's sublease not be renewed. That lease expired January 1, 2016.

The skydiving operation has leased space at the airport since 2013.

The city sent a letter to the FAA in February saying that Midwest Air Traffic Control, a contract controller that provides ATC services at the airport, said that they need to keep " all air traffic on the ground or outside the controlled airspace" while skydivers are in the air. Mayor Bosman said that the city has taken a position that they do now want to encourage skydiving at the airport. "With all the increase in jet traffic we’ve seen the last few years, they cannot cohabitate," he told the paper.

World Skydiving was cited last fall by the Kenosha Police Department for violating a city ordinance that prevents skydivers from landing in a nearby park. The company pleaded guilty to the charge and paid a fine. The interim Airport Director, Corey Reed, said that World Skydiving had been allowed to hold jumps at the airport only for about a month in 2014, but after a group of skydivers missed their drop zone and landed between the runways at the airport, gathered up their parachutes and walked across an active runway, the permission was rescinded. Reed said in a letter to the leasing company that the skydiving company had repeatedly disregarded "rules and regulations applicable to users of the airport" as well as city ordinances. He said at that time he was recommending that the sublease not be renewed.

The FAA sent a letter to the city in December asking for more specific information as to why the city wanted to ban the activity. The agency says it has "drawn no conclusions" based on the evidence presented by the contract controller. The FAA says that "significantly more analysis" is needed before it would agree to ban skydiving, which is a recognized aviation activity, at the airport.

In its February letter to the FAA, the city said that until the agency makes a determination, skydiving would be banned at the airport, which could jeopardize its federal funding.

FMI: www.kenosha.org