Butler’s airport described as a ‘small city’
PENN TWP — The Pittsburgh-Butler Regional Airport may be classed as a “general aviation airport,” but there’s nothing “general” about what goes on behind the scenes every day there.
Although Pittsburgh-Butler isn’t nearly as large as Pittsburgh International Airport and doesn’t host commercial flights, that doesn’t diminish the work that goes into running the airport on a daily basis.
“All of the things that are at the airport on a day-to-day basis, I think people would be surprised,” said Stephanie Saracco, who has been serving as airport manager since last October.
She said the work involves lots of people with a variety of skills and talents.
“You have people literally on the ground to run the airport itself. You have folks who have to maintain the runways, the taxiways, the lighting, the facility,” she said. “We operate as kind of a small city. We have to provide all of the services and utilities that a city would operate.”
Formerly known as simply the Butler County Airport, the name was changed in 2016 to reflect the airport’s proximity to the Pittsburgh area. The terminal building contains many relics of the airport’s 95-year history, which includes a time when Amelia Earhart trained there for her solo trans-Atlantic flight in 1932.
A “general aviation airport” such as the Pittsburgh-Butler Regional Airport (BTP) serves all sorts of aviation, including charter, training, medical, humanitarian and private flights.
“General aviation encompasses everything but commercial and military,” Saracco said. “We have businesses who fly in and out of the airport. Businesses in the region have aircraft here that they fly out to do their business.
“And we have businesses that come into this area that don't have an aircraft based here, but fly in here on a regular basis to do business in the county and in the region.”
The airport is also one of the five home bases for Allegheny Health Network’s LifeFlight helicopter program.
“The helicopters are based here, and the medical flight crews are here 24/7,” Saracco said. “They take their shifts and they have sleeping quarters and living quarters here.”
According to Saracco, more than 87,000 flights either took off from or landed at the airport last year — an average of more than 238 flight operations per day. To keep operations humming, every detail of the facility must be kept to exact specifications, many of which are set by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Everything — from the runway asphalt to the runway lights to the length of the grass surrounding the runway — has to be in perfect order.
“Someone has to check this airfield every day and make sure everything is in place,” Saracco said. “There are no stones or debris on the runway, the lights are all on and working properly, the grass is cut to a certain length, everything is open and operating.”
The lights are particularly important, according to Saracco.
“They have to be working. If a certain percentage of the light bulbs are out, the runway gets closed,” Saracco said. “We’ve not let that happen.”
The airport makes part of its money by renting space on its property to businesses, such as the Serventi’s on the Runway, a restaurant, and StructureTec, a national business that frequently uses the airport to commute.
“It’s convenient for them because they have other offices throughout the country,” Saracco said. “They can fly in here, land, meet here in the office, and go.”
One facility BTP does not have is a control tower. Takeoffs from, and landings at, the airport are handled by controllers elsewhere.
“We’re overseen by the tower at Pittsburgh International,” Saracco said. “And then once you get outside of the Pittsburgh International airspace, we use Cleveland Center. We’re in their airspace. All of that is determined by the federal government.”
Unlike large commercial airports, such as Pittsburgh International, which have the benefit of a larger staff who can perform specific roles when called upon, the Pittsburgh-Butler airport has fewer people performing more functions.
“We have two people who are maintenance. And they do airfield maintenance, snow removal, grass cutting, electrical, plumbing … all of those kind of things,” Saracco said. “Whereas at a big airport, you might have a plumbing department, an electrical department, an airfield department and an airfield maintenance department.”
While Saracco keeps the airport running day to day, she also is focusing on its future. The airport is about to begin working on an update to its 20-year master plan.
“The FAA requires airports to have a master plan that goes out 20 years to determine what improvements need to be made in that time frame so we can plan for it properly,” Saracco said.
She added the process of going through that plan takes about two years, a process that was meant to “be initiated sometime in September.”
Among the first priorities is to tear up and replace the runway’s northwest ramp, which Saracco says is “in desperate need of rehabilitation.”
