TH Airport Control Tower could see cuts

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTHI) - The countdown continues as Washington D.C. talks about major budget cuts.
It's called the sequester and it could impact several federal agencies.
    
One of them could be Terre Haute's airport. This weekend, the Federal Aviation Administration released a list of around 200 airports. They were all regional places that could see cuts if the sequester hits. Terre Haute's was on that list.

The good news is that it doesn't look like the airport itself will be impacted much.  That's because the airport goes through Airport Authority, not the federal government. That means projects and operations should continue relatively normally.

The biggest change could come to the air traffic control tower. Those workers are federally employed by the FAA. Officials said that staff could see some hours cut, meaning for some part of a 24 hour period, no one would be in the control tower. It sounds troubling, but officials say it's not much different than how things operate now.

Basically, pilots would have to take on the duties of air controllers while in landing and taking off. It's something many do now. So while the changes seem to be minimal, officials said they're still not ideal.

"It's unfortunate, just the state of affairs and the way the political system works," Bill McKown, Executive Director of the Terre Haute International Airport said.