The Southwest Michigan Regional Airport is conducting inspections of its hangars for the next couple of weeks.
Airport Director Shannon Christy tells us they do the inspections twice per year to ensure the airport’s 44 hangars are all being used properly. He says the airport is essentially a landlord that owns all of those structures.
“We’ve got to make sure that the contents inside the hangers are appropriate,” Christy said. “So no big barrels of gasoline, no illicit materials, no illegal material. And then for the tenants, we’ve got to make sure that the hangers themselves are operating properly, the doors are working well.”
Christy says they’re checking to make sure properly N-registered planes are being housed in the hangars and that they’re not being used inappropriately. For example, he says they could find someone running a business out of one, or perhaps using it for unauthorized storage, which just means the hangar is being used in the wrong way while other potential tenants are waiting.
“I have a wait list that’s probably six or seven people long that want to get in there to want to make sure that they can have an N-registered plane there. And if somebody’s not using it for those purposes, it’s a problem for us. It’s a problem for the community. It’s just not fair.”
Christy says they do the inspections each April and September. The current inspections are happening through April 15.
Christy tells us the exercises are a good way for the airport to get to know all its tenants. They also help keep the airport’s insurance costs down.
