Runway construction may temporarily alter MSP Airport flight patterns this spring, summer
The Metropolitan Airports Commission is letting Twin Cities residents know that a number of flight patterns may be temporarily different during two separate, weeks-long stretches this year.
The agency said that it plans to close the south parallel runway of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport to do construction work for "runway safety improvements," along with other projects, such as working on drainage and shoulder improvements, and to reconstruct a piece of the taxiway.
The first phase of the work begins Monday and will run until the Friday before Memorial Day. The second phase starts Aug. 18 and finishes up Sept. 26. The agency said that the reason they broke up the work into two separate chunks was to allow the runway to stay open for most of the peak summer travel season.
The commission stressed that, while there would likely be changes to departing and arriving flight patterns, residents concerned about airplane noise could reach out at 612-726-9411.
"The improvements are essential to maintain runway safety and extend the efficiency of our operations in the long term," Roy Fuhrmann, COO of the commission, said. "With this closure, air traffic control can assign flights to any of MSP's three other runways depending on wind direction, air traffic demand, or other operational factors."
The runway being targeted for these improvements is 12R-30L, a 10,000-foot, runway running east-west along the south side of Terminal 1.
