James March-April 2025 web - Flipbook - Page 77
tlanta and Georgia
are known around
the world for thier
main airport. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport serves 286,000 people a day, with
more than 104 million people landing
or taking off from Atlanta every year.
It is among the largest, single economic drivers in the state. However,
there are more than 100 other airports
around the state, and their impact is
significant as well.
For the 102 commercial service
and general aviation airports not
named Hartsfield-Jackson, their annual economic impact is approximately
$7 billion. These airports employ more
than 67,000 people and pay those employees more than $3.5 billion.
The state is fourth in the nation
for total airline economic output,
perhaps not a surprise since that
includes Hartsfield-Jackson. The state
is sixth for registered pilots, seventh
for registered aircraft, but only eighth
for aviation contribution to state Gross
Domestic Product— something that
probably speaks well to the diversity
of the Georgia economy. The state is
also thirteenth for general aviation
aircraft, meaning civilian flight that is
not passenger airline service, such as
private business travel or package delivery. It also includes an aerial application, the famous crop-duster.
Not seen much in the metro Atlanta region but still a frequent sight in
the more agricultural regions, many of
these airports still serve the crop-duster business. Georgia’s history with the
crop duster dates back all the way to
1925 when Huff Daland Dusters was
founded in Macon as the first commercial agricultural flying company and its
18 planes became the largest privately
owned aviation fleet in the world. That
company would move to Louisiana a
few months later and be renamed Delta Air Service. Some fifteen years later,
Delta would move back to Georgia, but
this time to Atlanta.
communities that may be a three-or
four-hour drive away from Atlanta. It
is their connection to the corporate
world,” says Greg Teague, CEO of
Croy Engineering, one of the companies that specializes in work at these
airports. Croy does everything from
environmental assessments, utility site
work, runway extensions and pavement rehab.
“Middle, South Georgia airports
are trying to get industries to come
in, the ability for the decision makers
of these economic generators to fly
into these local airports and go over
to their job creating facility is critical.
These airports are less than an hour
away. A corporate jet connection is going to help with that decision making
to locate in some of those areas.”
Economic Flyer Factor
Paving for the Future
Crop dusters still take off with
regularity, with one plane able to cover
some 2,000 acres of crops a day, but
corporate business is an increasingly
critical part of local airports’ business.
Manufacturing continues to grow in
Georgia and many of these manufacturers fly in managers and parts to
serve their facilities.
“The economic benefit is huge,
and it makes a big difference for those
A little over an hour south of Atlanta sits the Griffin-Spalding County Airport. It is a small facility limited in its
expansion ability because of the development around it. Too many different
parcels and too many different tenants
make acquiring the land for expansion
impossible. It is only about 3,400 feet
long on the runway, which is not long
enough for these corporate jets and
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