Business View Magazine | January 2020

165 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE JANUARY 2020 THE R I CK HUSBAND AMAR I LLO INTERNAT IONAL A I RPORT owned by the Amarillo Development Corporation, that are adjacent to the Airport’s 300 acres. Conner believes that the area is prime real estate for businesses that could develop and occupy it sometime in the future. “We’re just looking to put in as many aeronautical-type businesses that we can, and then, possibly, expand into some type of industrial or office park after the aeronautical businesses have been exhausted,” he reports. “We have Bell here; they used to be Bell Helicopter. They’ve got a major manufacturing facility where they manufactured the V-22 Osprey for a number of years and, if some of their military contracts work out to develop their newer models, then they can expand their facility and take over some of those extra 500 acres of land.” Other items on Connor’s agenda include promoting the Airport’s growth while simultaneously upping its efficiencies. “And we’re doing that by two different things,” he explains. “One project is to obtain an ISO 9001 certification. (ISO 9001 is the international standard that specifies requirements for a quality management system it, including our access control,” he notes. In addition, other updates were made to the terminal’s flight information display system, its audio paging system, and its restaurant and bar areas. “We pride ourselves in being a low-cost airport while still providing a high quality, clean, efficient operation,” he adds. “In 2020, our primary project is going to be the reconstruction of two taxiways – that’s about an $8.3 million project.” However, Conner maintains that his main focus for the upcoming year is to develop some 300- plus acres that are adjacent to the non-primary runway. “We have a lot of land that is available for development and from a marketing and business development standpoint, one of the first things we’ve identified to do is to build an on- airport hotel,” he states. “Amarillo is on I-40, so with the truck and other traffic going between Oklahoma City and Albuquerque, we get an inordinate amount of overnight-stay traffic. We’re about 400 miles from each of those cities, so it’s a good stopping point for a lot of people.” There’s also an additional 500 acres of land,