Horace Williams Airport’s days may be numbered.

The airport, which is owned and operated by UNC, has been in the crosshairs of administrators for more than a decade. And the UNC Board of Trustees Finance, Infrastructure and Audit committee is set to discuss the future of the airport on Wednesday afternoon.

UNC community relations director Linda Convissor wrote to Chapel Hill town manager Roger Stancil in a recent email that UNC’s “interest in closing the airport is due to the substantial operating losses sustained since the Area Health Education Center (AHEC) relocated to RDU in 2011.”

Convissor added that the facility needs “more than $1 million” in repairs to continue operation.

The airport is located near the Carolina North campus and several Chapel Hill – Carrboro City Schools. But Convissor wrote that there are “no plans for any significant development on the airport property or generally at Carolina North.”

Those plans, the correspondence continued, would be part of the master planning process for “Carolina North, main campus, Mason Farm and other UNC properties,” which is scheduled to take place next winter.

In committee materials released ahead of Wednesday’s meeting, officials wrote that “UNC has a long-held practice of exiting operations that are not core to the educational mission of the University.”

Wednesday’s item is informational only and will not consist of a formal vote to close the airport.

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