Hi,
In responding to a request for a rendering, I pulled a fuzzy image from Mr. Saenz's presentation from the city council meeting on December 09. The main runway will be expanded in both directions to fit inside the current land area of the airport with no need for extension over U.S. 281.
(
Jesus Saenz, presentation to San Antonio City Council)
The presentation is located following the
provided link. It shows up at the 19 minute mark.
http://sanantonio.granicus.com/Media...2&clip_id=5424
I believe this expansion has been in the plans for some time. If I recall correctly, 2021 was when the city was going to speak with airlines about starting transatlantic service to Frankfurt. (Interesting fact, unlike most US cities, our largest European trading partner is Germany and not the UK.) In addition, the cargo operators (UPS and FedEx) are in strong support of this expansion. They want to use larger aircraft for operations instead of the DC11s/767s that are currently in use.
The expansion also sets the region up for South American flights* by making all of South America reachable by 788 or A359.
*I really think this is the main reason for the somewhat sudden push in runway expansion. Europe is nice but it isn't growing very fast, and the future growth projections for Latin America show explosive growth for the coming decades as those countries industrialize more and the quality of life gets better. With our region's growth as a hub for cybersecurity and growth in tech in general, San Antonio has gained a reputation as an area where Latin American tech companies can get a foothold in the US tech market. (My two cents. Also, from August to September, the
SA Metro has a 21% growth rate in tech jobs, see the link below.)
https://www.bizjournals.com/sananton...th-report.html