'I'M GOING TO GET IT': Plan is to sell state turboprop and lease jet, reporters are told.
JUNEAU -- Gov. Frank Murkowski on Wednesday defended his insistence on getting a jet aircraft, arguing the political firestorm over it is obscuring the merits of his proposal.
"I'm going to get it and we're going to use it," Murkowski said.
In an unusual move, the governor invited members of the state Capitol press corps to meet with him and talk about the jet. The 45-minute meeting came the same day the governor laid out his case for the jet in a newspaper column.
"I don't think the public has said 'no.' I think you've got a group of activists and you've got legislators who are fearful of the political consequences," Murkowski told the reporters.
Last year the federal government denied Murkowski's request to use $2 million in homeland security funds to buy a jet, which the governor could use for his official travel when it wasn't on a state public safety mission. The governor tried again this spring, asking the Legislature to appropriate $1.4 million in state funds so he could lease a jet.
The Legislature refused and lawmakers from both parties say their constituents are dead-set against it. Last week, Murkowski said he was going to get the jet anyway. He would use his budget authority to sell one of the state's King Air 200 turboprops and use the money to lease a used jet.
The governor said Wednesday the plan is in motion; the Department of Public Safety is considering what jet to get. He said a possibility is a one-year lease, with an option to buy, of a 1983 Westwind II.
The lease price is $30,000 a month, he said. Murkowski said he didn't know yet what it would cost to train a state crew to fly it.
Murkowski also said he was not sure how much the state could get by selling one of its two 25-year-old King Air turboprops. But he suggested it could be more than $600,000.
Murkowski, like his predecessor Tony Knowles, often flies in one of the King Airs. Murkowski used one of them 76 percent of the time it was in the air last year. He used the other just 7 percent of the time, state figures show.
In a chart given to reporters on Wednesday, the governor said the operating cost of the King Air is $2.42 per nautical mile. The cost for the Westwind II is $3.24.
"Only difference between the King Air and the Westwind, really is the engine. You are replacing a turboprop with a jet and you can go higher, you can go faster," the governor said.
There is at least one other difference, though; the Westwind II has restroom facilities. The King Air does not.
"Obviously that's not the justification (for the jet)," Murkowski said. "But when you are on a longer flight, you know, there are certain necessities that are a reality."
A person who must relieve himself on the King Air has to go to the back seat of the airplane, pull a partition for privacy, and face a funnel-bottle contraption.
Murkowski listed what he considers advantages to a jet: Troopers could use it to respond to emergencies faster and it would take less time to transport Alaska prisoners to a private prison in Arizona. And the jet would save him travel time as he works on natural gas pipeline issues and other state business.
"I'm finding trips get longer and longer. If I go to Calgary and want to take the King Air it's an all-day trip. If I want to go commercial then I have to go to Seattle," Murkowski said.
Murkowski handed out an e-mail from a North Slope Borough pilot about how much better suited to Alaska the jet would be than the King Air. Murkowski's public safety commissioner has also pushed for the jet.
But Rep. Ralph Samuels, R-Anchorage and a Pen Air executive, last summer consulted others experienced in the Alaska aviation industry and reached a different conclusion.
The group Samuels assembled said the King Air could use much shorter runways than the jet, an important consideration in rural Alaska. It also said having just one aircraft of a certain type is inefficient for maintenance.
Their report said the jet would be faster, although less so on legs under 350 miles because of the time to reach cruise speed and altitude. They said the drawbacks of buying a jet outweighed the upside, at least at that point.
Murkowski said the King Airs don't fly to the small rural airstrips either; troopers now fly into a hub like Bethel and get other transportation to the rural villages, he said.
A bill moving through the Legislature would create a state aviation advisory board. Samuels said that would be a good group to decide the jet issue outside the political pressure cooker.
"Get some people who know what they're doing and get it away from the politicians," he said.
Daily News reporter Sean Cockerham can be reached in Juneau at scockerham@adn.com.
