The Gardner Municipal Airport is owned by the City of Gardner and operated by the Airport Board. The Board is responsible for maintaining the airport in accordance with FAA grant assurance agreements; however, the day-to-day management of airport operations is carried out by a part-time maintenance technician and the Airport Board President. With the help of the Airport Board, they are responsible for basic airport administrative duties as well as general maintenance of the airfield and equipment. Administrative duties include maintaining airport lease agreements and tracking Airport incomes and expenses.

 

The Gardner Municipal Airport has over 100 based aircraft comprised of 101 single-engine planes, 4 gliders, and 3 ultra-light aircraft. Based on the latest FAA 5010 inspection report, the airport currently experiences approximately 26,000 annual operations split between 18,200 local and 7,800 itinerant operations.

 

 

Services

The Gardner Municipal Airport maintains a variety of support services for aircraft, primarily for single-engine, piston aircraft. Services offered at K34 include aircraft parking and tie-downs, hangars, aircraft maintenance, 24 hour self service fuel (100LL, 80, MOGAS), glider towing, flight instruction, and aircraft rental.

The FAA National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems 2007-2011 (NPIAS) identifies Gardner Municipal Airport as a general aviation (GA) airport facility. The GA role is given to communities that do not receive scheduled commercial service or meet the criteria for classification as a commercial service airport, but have enough activity and at least 10 based aircraft. There are approximately 2,574 GA airports in the country contributing 40 percent of the nation’s GA fleet. These airports are important to the nation’s aviation fleet, especially to rural areas where commercial airlines are not easily accessible.

 

Based on the application of airport design criteria from FAA Advisory Circular 50/5300-13, Change #12, Airport Design, the airport has an Airport Reference Code (ARC) of A-I. The ARC is a coding system used to relate airport design criteria to the operational and physical characteristics of the aircraft intended to operate at the airport. The ARC has two components: 1) aircraft approach category, which relates to aircraft approach speeds and is grouped into five categories (A thru E); and 2) airport design group, which relates to the aircraft wingspan and is grouped into six categories (I thru VI).