Business View Magazine | July 2019

133 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE JULY 2019 ROCKY MOUNT-WI LSON REGIONAL A I RPORT and the new Airport was built in 1969.” So, what is now known as the Rocky Mount- Wilson Regional Airport is owned and operated by the Rocky Mount-Wilson Regional Airport Authority, which is composed of seven members, and is located approximately 12 miles from the central business district of Rocky Mount, North Carolina and approximately 10 miles from the central business district of Wilson, North Carolina. With its 7,000 foot runway, it serves the general aviation needs of the five funding sponsors: the City of Rocky Mount, the City of Wilson, Edgecombe County, Nash County, and Wilson County. At one time, the Airport had commercial service provided by Piedmont Airlines, which ended in 1980, followed by CCAir, operating as US Airways Express, but traffic fell after the arrival of Southwest Airlines at nearby Raleigh-Durham International Airport in 1999, which made flights from there relatively inexpensive. So, the US Airways Express service was suspended in March 2001. Today, the Airport employs three full-time and two part-time people. Currently, 24 aircraft are home- based there, with plans to build 23 new T-Hangar spots, completely funded under the state’s Strategic Transportation Initiative. In addition to those mostly fixed-wing planes, the Airport also hosts medical transport helicopters, some private and corporate jets, and the Tar River Composite Squadron of the Civil Air Patrol. Its Fixed Base Operator, AirCare, is a sales, maintenance, avionics, and support company that was founded over 40 years ago by a Crop Duster named Charlie Wilson. “In terms of how we continue to update and improve the Airport, we have recently finished a number of projects,” says Viventi. “We just finished a $900,000 lighting and signage upgrade and we are currently undergoing a $14.8 million runway, taxiway, and apron rehabilitation project. On top of that, we were recently awarded a $340,000 fuel farm mitigation project and another $300,000 towards a self-serve fuel farm project.” The two cities and three counties contribute to these projects, but the majority of funding comes from