More Growth at Yeager Airport.

Great to see continued positive development at Yeager Airport. The below article from the Charleston Gazette details hanger growth as well as a grant officials with the airport are working on to create direct flights to New York. If you are interested in writing a support letter, please contact mballard@charlestonareaalliance.com for appropriate contact information.


May 25, 2006
Yeager to get hangar


By Jennifer Ginsberg
Staff writer

Pilots who fly in and out of Yeager Airport’s general aviation area will soon find a new place to park their planes.

The airport’s governing board approved a $620,000 loan from BB&T at its monthly meeting Wednesday to build a new common hangar. The new hangar will be 3,600 square feet larger than the current plane storage facility and should open in the fall.

The airport is building the hangar to give the growing aircraft maintenance business Reebaire Aircraft Inc. more space. Reebaire shares its hangar with other planes and needs more room to do business. Those other planes will move to the common hangar.

Support for flight to New York urged

In other business, airport marketing committee chairwoman Priscilla Haden urged board members and other community members to write letters to the U.S. Department of Transportation in support of a direct flight to New York City.

Airport officials applied for a federal $500,000 Small Communities Air Service Development Grant to use as an incentive for an airline to offer the flight. They should find out this fall if they received the money.

A Continental Airlines official asked Yeager’s marketing director Brian Belcher and director Rick Atkinson to apply for the grant during a January meeting. The official said the airline wants to expand its Newark, N.J., hub.

Belcher said he thought landing a direct flight to the New York City area was likely and that the grant would help start the service sooner. If Yeager receives the grant, Belcher envisions Continental starting the flight sometime next year.

Yeager received a grant from the federal program in 2002, which it used to entice Continental to start service to Houston. The grant paid for operating losses Continental incurred for those flights.

Belcher and Atkinson have meetings with five airlines, including Continental, next month at the Airports Council International’s JumpStart Conference in Austin, Texas. The duo will meet with airline route planners and focus on keeping and upgrading the service from Yeager’s five airlines.

To contact staff writer Jennifer Ginsberg, use e-mail or call 348-5195.