Here's why Customs and Border Protection needs a bigger ramp at Eisenhower Airport

Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect Wichita City Council approval of the project.

Bombardier's plan to bring new aircraft work and 100 more jobs to Wichita rests in part on a project the Wichita City Council approved on Tuesday.

Wichita Eisenhower National Airport officials were seeking $750,000 to expand the aircraft ramp at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility, 1700 S. Airport Road.

The expansion "is required due to larger aircraft from Bombardier and other international users which must be inspected at the Customs site," a city document said. "Bombardier has indicated an urgent need to accommodate larger inbound international aircraft due to new programs for the Global series of business jet aircraft."

Bombardier announced last November that it would move interior completions work on its Global 5000 business jet to Wichita in the second half of 2018. The aircraft is assembled in Canada and will be brought to Wichita to be finished.

Because about 1,400 workers at Bombardier's Wichita site will largely be completing the last step in manufacturing an airplane, the company also will be delivering the planes to customers here.

And since a lot of those airplanes are purchased by international customers, an expanded ramp will accommodate Bombardier's larger Global jets, some of which also come to Wichita for service, a Bombardier spokesman said.

"It's part of our activity to bring Global 5000 completions to Wichita," Bombardier Business Aircraft spokesman Mark Masluch said. "It's something we petitioned for."

Masluch said Bombardier is on track to bring the new work to Wichita later this year.

Since it was approved by the council, which serves as the Wichita Airport Authority, construction on the expanded ramp is expected to begin in September, an airport official said during the Wichita Airport Advisory Board's monthly meeting on Monday.

It would be part of a larger $1.35 million project that includes the construction of a new taxiway called H-2 that would serve future development of new aircraft hangars on Eisenhower's east side.

Both projects will be mostly funded through Federal Aviation Administration Airport Improvement Program grants as well as by airport funds and general obligation bonds repaid with airport revenue.

This story was originally published July 9, 2018 at 5:43 PM.