U.S. Department 

of Transportation 

Office of the Secretary 

of Transportation 

Mr. Timothy Hulbert, IOM 

Chamber President, Charlottesville 

Regional Chamber of Commerce 

209 Fifth Street, NE 

Charlottesville, VA 22902 

Dear Mr. Hulbert: 

Assistant Secretary 

AUG 2 6 20t4 

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.. ''·.'.1200 New Jersey Avenue. SE 

. :,'u'/Xa~l1lngton, DC 20590 

Thank you for your letter, addressed to Secretary Foxx, supporting the proposal submitted by 

Charlottesville Albemarle Airport Authority for a grant under the U.S. Department of 

Transportation's Small Community Air Service Development Program. Secretary Foxx asked 

that I respond to you on his behalf. 

The Small Community Air Service Development Program was established to help smaller 

communities address air service deficiencies, particularly issues related to high airfares and 

insufficient service. Under the statute, the Department may make a maximum of 40 grant 

awards each year, although no more than four may be to communities in the san1e State. To 

provide communities with latitude in developing solutions to their air service deficiencies, the 

statute provides flexibility in the types of air service development projects that can be funded. 

On June 30, the Department issued an order setting a deadline of July 31 for applications. As 

these grant requests are pending before the Department, I cannot comment on the merits of any 

particular proposal. I assure you, however, that the Department will give full and fair 

consideration to all proposals that have been properly filed. 

As is our standard practice, I am placing a copy of your letter and this response in Docket 

DOT -OST-2014-0113 as a contact outside the record of this matter. I appreciate your interest in 

this program. 

Sincerely yours, 

Susan L. Kurland 

Assistant Secretary 'for 

Aviation and International Affairs 
For more than a century" ... dedicated to representing private enterprise, business 

Dear Mr. Secretary: 

and enhancing the quality of life in our Grf!oter Charlottesville communities." 

cvillechamber.com • 209 Fifth Street, NE • Charlottesville, Virginia 22902 

July 23, 2014 

RE: Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport Authority 

Federal Small Community Air Service Development Grant Program 

Community Partner- Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce 

The Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce as always, is pleased to support the 

Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport Authority's (CHO) $200,000 grant application to the United States 

Department of Transportation's Small Communiity Air Service Development Program (SCASDP). 

Our Airport's grant application highlights the need in today's highly competitive world to both, 

attract new air service, as well as to retain and improve the new and existing air service. The 

Charlottesville Albemarle Airport Authority is di!ligent in attracting new and expanded air service to CHO, 

but economic and industry events outside its control, adversely impact CHO's hard work and successes. 

The availability 0f quality commercial air service has a powerful impact on our region's economy through 

improved access for our area's globally-competitive enterprises; thousands of business visitors and even 

greater numbers of tourists; two critically important US defense intellegence agencies and associated 

defense intellegence enterprises; one of the nation's leading universities; and, other civic organizations 

and institutions. 

For more than a century our Chamber is dedicated to representing private enterprise, promoting 

business and enhancing the quality of life in our Greater Charlottesville communities. Founded in 1913, 

today the Chamber has more than 1,200 member&. affiliate member enterprises together employing 

more than 45,000 men and women, representing an estimated total payroll of more than $1.75 billion a 

year. 

Our Chamber helped give birth to the Airport. In 1947, after surveying, researching, and 

investigating an "ideal location" for a Charlottesville Airport, the Chamber came to a conclusion with a 

report sponsoring a location for the Charlottesville Albemarle Airport. The Chamber Board of Directors 

then sent the report to the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County for "implementation." The 

Charlottesville Albemarle Airport opened in 1955, after several years of regulatory approvals at that very 

same "ideal location" identified by the Chamber in 1947. Ours is an enduring 67 -year "public~private" 
partnership that has helped to build and maintain our Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport as a signature 

regional transportation facility in our Greater Charlottesville region. 

Our airport is a key portal into our community and a link to our nation and the world. Each year 

more than 460,000 people take off from or land at our airport, representing aggregate airport revenues of 

more than $4.3 million. The continued sustenance and progress of "CHO" as a safer, more efficient and 

increasingly affordable transportation artery remains essential to the economic vitality of our region. 

-2. 

As you know well, our national air transportation industry continues to work through difficult 

economic challenges. Throughout these challenges, in Charlottesville, the Airport Authority and its 

management team enjoy our Chamber's and community's confidence and support. With this in mind, our 

Chamber is pleased to participate in this program to help increase air service into our region. By 

incorporating the use of our effective direct Chamber business communications in your air travel 

promotions, this partnership will help insure that a broad range of business, university and community 

leaders- and travelers- will avail themselves of more frequent air travel. 

As one of the Authority's community partners, our Chamber will provide in-kind programmatic 

communications and other strategic and administrative support and assistance to this initiative. We 

estimate the in-kind value of these items to be in excess of $4,500. Where small community air service 

initiatives are concerned, it is partnerships such as ours that can help make the difference between having 

sound, efficient, improving air services or not. We have every confidence that the CHO program will have 

the full support of our Chamber and its member enterprisses and the Central Virginia business 

community. Again, our Charlottesville Regional Chamber is pleased to join the Charlottesville-Albemarle 

Airport Authority as a community partner in this Federal Small Community Air Service Development Grant 

Program initiative. 

Mr. Secretary, our Chamber urges your favorable consideration of the Charlottesville- Albemarle 

Airport Authority's grant application and we look forward to a successful renewed partnership in building 

air travel for our region. 

Thank you. 

The Honorable Anthony Foxx 

Secretary of Transportation 

Office of the Secretary 

United States Department of Transportation 

Sincerely, 

~~~-

Timothy Hulbert, IOM 

Chamber President