Statesville Regional Airport

STATESVILLE REGIONAL AIRPORT ty significant size aircraft to require that. Right now, the largest plane that I have seen here was a 727-200 for freight.We get those in here sev- eral times a year.We’ve had DC9-10’s in here for freight as well. But air freight is really growing in our region, and if someone wanted to bring in larger aircraft, we have the ability to extend the runway for that purpose.” The two major competitors to Statesville are the Concord Regional Airport, north of Charlotte, and the Charlotte Douglas Airport, itself. “Concord is pretty much like us,” says Ferguson. “They’ve got several drivers based at their airport and most of the owners. They’ve got all the big name owners, and so, we are pretty similar. A lot of the drivers and owners live in Mooresville or around Lake Norman which is kind of a central location to both Concord and us, so a lot of the people live around us and some just go to Concord and some to us.” Charlotte Douglass is only 35 miles south, however, and it is a huge airport with significant PREFERRED VENDOR n Mooresville South Iredell Economic Development Corporation www.edcmooresville.org The Mooresville South Iredell Economic Development Corporation (MSIEDC) is a private, non-prof- it organization located in Iredell County, dedicated to economic prosperity in the Mooresville-South Iredell region. Its mission is to increase the non-residential tax base and create jobs by focusing on industrial and commercial development. general aviation operations. “They have three runways and are soon going to four,” Ferguson ex- plains, “and so, it is only going to be getting busier and busier.We can offer a really good alternative for general aviation.” “One of our biggest advantages,” he continues, “is that Statesville is located outside of the Char- lotte airspace so when jets leave and take off from here, they are speaking to Atlanta Center which is much more efficient than speaking to Charlotte approach because they are going to be routing Charlotte people first. And Concord comes under Charlotte’s airspace, as well, while we do not.” “When it boils down to convenience and expense,” Ferguson concludes, “flying out of our Airport is much more efficient, as well as simply being more convenient.We hope that people will see that we are a huge supporter of corpo- rate aviation, and that with the business climate around Charlotte metropolitan area, we are a viable alternative to Charlotte.”