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Airport scores 5th `perfect' in safety Passenger numbers also set record By ALBERTO ENRIQUEZ The Medford airport posted a 3.5 percent increase in passengers last year, making 1998 the fourth record year in a row. The airport also scored a fifth consecutive perfect safety inspection this week. "It's fares, and it's a healthy economy," Bern Case, director of Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport, said Thursday. "We won't have a breakout for six months, but it's about 50 percent business and 50 percent pleasure, about what you get elsewhere." The figures now available show 453,806 passengers departed or arrived at the airport in 1998. The total came within a whisker of a projected 453,912 passengers despite some bad weather. Fog grounded air carriers on only one full day in 1998. United and United Express reported 60 cancellations for the calendar year, and Horizon Airlines reported 61 cancellations in the period between Nov. 1, 1998, and Jan. 10, 1999. With air travel up, Case was also crowing about performance. The airport recently completed its fifth perfect safety inspection, an apparently unprecedented record in a Federal Aviation Administration region that includes Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. "When we got our third perfect inspection, it had been a long time since anybody in the region had one -- so they gave us a special plaque," Case said. "The bigger the airport, the harder it is to get a perfect. That's fair to say. When I was at Salt Lake we had two perfects, but not in a row." The inspections are more like detailed annual audits -- with up to six months' notice given to prepare the paperwork -- than surprise visits. But Medford's latest visit came close to being a spot check. "They were going to be inspecting another Southern Oregon airport, and they said they didn't want to make two trips," Case said. "So we had a week's notice." Inspectors check items such as runways and lights along with reviewing the paperwork. At a major airport, there may be thousands of runway lights. Faulty runway lights are not considered a violation unless three in a row or a total of 10 percent are out. At some cost-conscious larger airports, maintenance schedules allow for up to 7 percent bad bulbs. Medford, with only several hundred lights, does all maintenance immediately. "If a light's out, we replace it," Case said. "If there's a runway crack, we crack-seal it." Case said he made inspections a priority in 1994 when the airport was tagged with deficiencies two weeks after his arrival. Case said the perfect string of inspections since then could not have been accomplished without the cooperation of the airport fire department and private businesses at the airport. Inspectors have been especially impressed by the cooperation even among competitors. Audits allow for on-the-spot corrections. In one instance, a charter service's truck lacked a required safety decal. When none was available, the operator called a competing company and remedied the problem in minutes. "It's a great community," Case said. "I love it." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA