As tourism slowly starts to return to Dillingham Airfield on the North Shore, supporters are cautiously hopeful that Oahu’s only skydiving and glider center can remain open beyond a June 30 state Department of Transportation pullout date.

A plan to stay aloft is struggling to gain altitude with ongoing COVID-19 restrictions still the most immediate of concerns.

To make continued operation possible, management of aviation activities at Dillingham likely would have to shift from DOT Airports to an airport authority that would contract with a third-party operator in a public-private partnership.

North Shore state Sen. Gil Riviere, who has championed the effort to save airport operations, jobs and the more than $12 million pumped into the struggling state economy from them, said three established companies have indicated a willingness to run the airfield.

“I’ve identified three companies. I can’t name them today because it’s still pending, but it’s real,” Riviere said. “These three companies are interested in managing and operating the airfield.”

DOT said in a letter Wednesday to Riviere that he is “correct that many airports in the United States are managed by private companies under contract to the proprietor-local government.”

A state lease with the Army, the land owner, is still valid until 2024, Riviere said. “So what I’m trying to do is get some buy-in from DOT and from the governor. … Let’s transition to this new management company and the nuts and bolts of the details — that’s all going to be sorted out.”

Gov. David Ige’s office did not comment.

>> PHOTOS: Future of Dillingham Airfield up in the air

The two big skydiving companies, Pacific Skydiving Honolulu and Skydive Hawaii, had been operating on the weekends with mostly local residents due to COVID-19 tourist restrictions, but Pacific Skydiving has now added weekday flights.

On Wednesday, at least six planeloads of skydivers took off, said Pacific Skydiving manager Bryan Stanley.

“We’re starting to see actual tourists, you know — ‘Hey where are you from? I’m from Chicago, I’m here on vacation,’ ” Stanley said. “This weekend is actually starting to pick up more than it was last weekend.”

Japanese, Chinese and South Korean tourists make up the bulk of the skydiving clientele, and with flights from Japan resuming, Stanley expects to see a pickup in skydiving.

“We’re a skeleton crew when it comes to staff right now, so I’m starting to get some of my instructors back from the mainland,” Stanley said.

On a busy Saturday pre-coronavirus, Pacific Skydiving would average 90 to 120 jumpers, he said. A week ago Saturday there were close to 60.

Tom Sanders, owner of Paradise Air Hawaii, a powered hang-glider flight school at Dillingham, said the two skydiving companies were the busiest in the world for first-jump students — and provide the bulk of revenue from the airfield.

Approximately 11 businesses with 130 employees operated at the airport prior to the onset of coronavirus.

Sanders said he’s hung on with Small Business Administration help. Most other businesses are still there with reduced capacity, he said.

“I think I’m more concerned with the airport closing than with COVID because I think if people wear masks and a vaccine comes out or some kind of therapeutics, we’ll be able to get back to some business,” he said.

In April, due to COVID-19, the DOT notified airport tenants that it would terminate its lease at Dillingham a year later than planned, extending its management there only until June 30, 2021.

Absent a replacement agreement with the U.S. Army, which owns the airfield and has priority over its use for periodic training, general aviation would have to move out.

The two skydiving operations “can’t relocate anywhere on Oahu,” Sanders said. “There’s no place to go. They will just be closed. It’s gone. And the gliders will be gone.”

Problems persist

In 1983 the Army negotiated a 25-year lease for airport use with the state that ended in 2008. The next year another lease was negotiated for another 25 years to 2034.

However, that lease was amended to five years ending in 2014. The lease was extended to 2019 and then 2024.

“Despite over a decade of effort, DOTA has been unable to secure a longer-term lease with the U.S. Army, which has limited DOTA’s ability to manage the airfield,” the transportation department said in a letter to tenants in September.

Five-year terms would not enable airport users to get loans for major airport improvements, the state said.

DOT also said it subsidizes a $1 million loss a year at the airport. Additionally, a water system that supplies Dillingham and a number of nearby homes, Camp Erdman, a city beach park and the Air Force satellite tracking station is part of the lease with DOTA, which has to maintain the system.

DOTA “is not in the business of being a water system operator or purveyor, and, among other issues, no fees are collected,” the transportation department said. Riviere wants to set up a water cooperative for that.

Some airport tenants accuse DOTA of being an absentee landlord for years. Sanders said previously that the airports division “truly tried to ignore” Dillingham Airfield.

Partway into one long-term lease, the Army came out and inspected the operation and was not happy, he said. “There were many problems like buildings that had no permits, etc.,” Sanders said.

The lease term was then modified to five years.

The airports division “did not deserve a long-term contract, in the Army’s opinion, and I must agree,” Sanders said, noting that all tenants have suffered because DOTA did not force a few bad apples to follow the rules.

Another complication Riviere is trying to figure out is why the state never took ownership of 87 acres including part of what’s known as “Army Beach” across from Dillingham and portions of the airfield itself, as directed by Congress.

The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 1991 — with U.S. Sen. Dan Inouye’s involvement — provided for “joint civilian and military use of the property as an airfield by the state and the United States Army.”

Airfield’s future

Despite all the obstacles, Riviere said he’s optimistic.

“I feel confident that the airfield will continue,” he said. “I just think it’s far too valuable to the region, to general aviation, to the businesses that are operating, the 130 employees.”

DOT admits that, “To be clear, the U.S. Army Garrison Hawaii has offered to work through the complex and burdensome administrative process to gain authorization for a longer-term lease for the airfield.”

Garrison spokeswoman Stefanie Gutierrez said the Army “is interested in reaching a solution and will fully consider any proposal from government agencies to resolve this issue.”

She added that the Army “is still in discussions with the state of Hawaii regarding responsibility and the future of the water system at Dillingham Airfield. A final determination has not yet been made.”

Riviere said all he needs for the moment is “some constructive dialogue,” and then some more time to have others come in to run the airport.

“I’m not trying to make DOT stay. Let them go. Whatever,” Riviere said. “But we need their support to not wipe out the businesses in the meantime.”