“In years of doing this, I’ve been airport manager of the year, I’ve had board of the year, but airport of the year, we had to chase it. It was one that I’ve always thought we deserved here. We had a great year last year, and the Aeronautics Division in Tennessee thought that as well. So, they rewarded us with that great honor.” REBUILDING FROM THE GROUND UP The airport’s recent successes are the result of years of planning and execution. In 2023, Jackson Regional undertook a complete reconstruction of its primary runway, a challenging but necessary project. “Our runway surface had gotten down where we had areas that were less than 65 on the scale and aeronautics knew we needed to work on it, we knew we needed to work on it,” Smith acknowledges. “However, because of the economic boom that’s going on right now in West Tennessee, our business was so good that we really hated to close the airport for a year and fix anything.” Still, they forged ahead with the project, taking the runway 36 inches below the original surface and building it back up. “Not only do we have a great, beautiful, smooth runway, we have a runway with a new base that has a higher load factor than what we had before, and it’s going to help us with the larger airplanes,” he depicts. Despite the disruption to jet traffic, the project was crucial, especially with growing demand driven by Ford Motor Company’s BlueOval City, located just 40 miles away.“We began to work with them a couple of years ago, trying to work a deal to be their airport of choice in the area,” Smith explains.“There’s only one traffic light between us and BlueOval City, so it takes about 25 minutes to get there on Interstate 40. We’ve been able to sell that to Ford. Now it’s our job to try to hold up what we promised them we would do.” Along with the runway rebuild, the airport replaced edge lighting and airfield signs, resealed other runways, and taxiways, regraded the grounds, and reseeded airfield greenspace.“Now the entire airfield, and the Aerodrome surface all looks brand new, and it’s really pretty. It just looks like what it is, a very updated runway,” he touts. In addition, a BIL grant provided $1.2 million towards a complete rebuild of the control tower, updating everything from windows 37 AVIATION VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 05, ISSUE 02 JACKSON REGIONAL AIRPORT
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