Joe Kline / Bulletin file photoCarriers are adding flights at Redmond Airport, and local leaders also expect to meet with discount carrier Allegiant Air, which offered service between Redmond and Las Vegas from 2007 to 2012.

Jeff Tripp, director of the Redmond Airport, said Wednesday there’s “never a good time to shut an airport down.”

Just the same, the Redmond Airport will be shutting down for three weeks in May 2016 to allow for the reconstruction of Runway 4-22, the larger of the two criss-crossing runways.

Due to the configuration of the two runways, all fixed-wing air traffic will be grounded at Central Oregon’s only commercial airport between May 2 and May 23 of that year while crews rush to complete the $18.3 million project.

Tripp said the timing of the renovation is guided by two key considerations — weather, which determines how well new asphalt laid down will hold up, and past airport passenger counts, the most reliable measure of how many would-be air travelers are likely to be inconvenienced.

Unfortunately for the city of Redmond, which owns and operates the airport, the two factors don’t easily align.

Passenger counts are typically at their lowest in fall and spring, Tripp said, but asphalt — and the city expects to use as much asphalt as was used to repave U.S. Highway 97 between Bend and Redmond last summer — won’t cure properly unless temperatures are 45 degrees or higher.

Over the past several years, May has been a moderately busy month at Redmond Airport in terms of monthly passenger numbers. In May 2014, 43,186 passengers flew in or out of the Redmond Airport — the fifth-busiest month of the year, between first-place August and its 54,788 passengers and last-place February’s 35,711.

Tripp said the closure is a hardship and will undoubtedly inconvenience travelers and freight shippers who rely on the airport as their connection to the outside world. But, he said, it’s necessary.

“With these every 20- to 30-year projects, the time to rebuild the runway is now,” Tripp said. “And once we do it, we won’t have to do it again for quite a long time.”

To prepare for the shutdown, the city of Redmond has formed a task force with ties to the business and tourism communities to try to minimize the disruption.

Alana Hughson, president of the Central Oregon Visitors Association and a member of the task force, said that although the interruption to air service will be difficult for the tourism industry, setting the construction dates more than a year in advance is a big help.

“No question that it’s a serious issue, and I appreciate the Redmond Airport for putting together this task force and getting people involved early on, because communication is going to be key,” Hughson said.

Hughson said she and others involved in planning for the project are already reaching out to hotels and facilities that host conferences, conventions and other events that attract large numbers of people to the region. Larger events tend to schedule well in advance, she said, and if a group is set on holding an event in Central Oregon next May, it should be possible to get all of their members here without too much difficulty.

Hughson said like Central Oregon tourism more broadly, conventions and similar events held in the area tend to attract attendees from the Pacific Northwest and the West Coast, many of whom are more likely to drive than fly to the area.

According to figures assembled by Visit Bend, only about 20 percent of visitors to the city take a flight as part of their journey, and only about 40 percent of fliers flew directly to Redmond, with the rest switching to ground transportation in Portland or Seattle.

Roger Lee, task force member and director of Economic Development for Central Oregon, said while he understands the need to rebuild the runway, shutting down commercial service for three weeks is “as close to a nightmare as you can have.”

Lee said there are a large number of companies in Central Oregon that rely on the Redmond Airport to ship products by air, most often in the hold of regularly scheduled commercial flights. He said it may be possible to arrange flights out of Prineville or Bend to move time-sensitive air freight, but doing so would be much more complicated logistically than using commercial carriers.

Just as the weather warms up and passenger numbers begin rising in May, so does hiring and other business activity in Central Oregon, Lee said.

“I don’t know if we really have an idea how much this is going to impact companies. Three weeks any time of the year is substantial, but the timing is early May, and that’s a busy time of year,” he said.

Lee said there has been some discussion of copying a model used in other communities where air service has been disrupted, creating a temporary bus service between the Redmond and Portland airports to get passengers to and from connecting flights.

For Lancair, a kit plane manufacturer based at the Redmond Airport, the closure will be a burden but not too disruptive, according to spokesman Doug Meyer.

Meyer said the company tests its planes at the Redmond Airport, while prospective buyers often fly their own aircraft to Redmond to visit the company’s showroom. Meyer said he’s excited the runway is being improved, and it’s likely the company will shift some operations to its hangars at the Bend Airport while construction is underway.

“It’s an inconvenience, but we’ll roll with it,” Meyer said.

— Reporter: 541-383-0387, shammers@bendbulletin.com