NATCHEZ, Miss. – City aldermen agreed Tuesday to allocate $33,000 for what Mayor Dan Gibson said is “needed for furthering our work for reestablishing commercial air service for Natchez-Adams County.”
The money will be used to pay for more professional “expertise” needed to recruit an airliner, Gibson said. After about 30 years without, city and county officials since 2021 have been aggressively trying to convince a passenger airline to serve the community on a regular basis.
After receiving state and federal grants to subsidize airline services and improve airport infrastructure, Natchez-Adams County is “now in an incredible position to make all of this hard work come to fruition,” Gibson said.
The city and county was awarded a $750,000 federal grant in 2022 that’s considered an essential subsidy to attract a regularly scheduled airline to the Natchez-Adams County Airport. While airlines have expressed interest, none have made a commitment. They have included Utah-based SkyWest Airlines and Florida-based Southern Airways in recent months, according to airport director Richard Nelson.
The $33,000 the Board of Aldermen earmarked Tuesday is from $200,000 already budgeted for the airport, Gibson said. This will be a joint allocation to also be approved by the Adams County Board of Supervisors.
The Natchez-Adams County Airport has been without regular airline service for three decades. It had commercial passenger planes landing here between the early 1950s and late 1980s and again briefly in the mid-1990s, according to the airport’s historical records.
A prime source of plane passengers now could be those coming here to make movies, take riverboat trips and tour the area, Gibson said. Plans have been discussed for American Cruise Lines to fly passengers to Natchez to board its riverboats that dock here. Natchez has had several TV and movie productions done here in recent years with hopes for more to come.
The pursuit of an airliner comes as various structural improvements have been made in recent years at the airport to enhance its capacity to accommodate commercial airplanes. The work has been largely paid for with federal and state funds received for resurfacing runways, constructing a hangar and purchasing a fire truck. Allocations this year include $800,000 from the state Department of Transportation granted in April for building a hangar and $900,000 appropriated by the U.S. Congress in March for a fire truck.
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