Business View Magazine | March 2019

74 THOMASVILLE REGIONAL AIRPORT A BIT OF SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY T homasville Regional Airport is a city- owned, general aviation airport locat- ed seven miles northeast of the cen- tral business district of Thomasville, a city in Thomas County, Georgia. “The Regional Airport replaced the previous Rose City Airport, which was located closer to town,” explains Airport Manager, Robert Petty. “As the town grew, the civic leaders needed a location for another airport and approached the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) back in 1941 for a modern airport and were authorized $316,000 to build a new airport. At the end of that year, America entered World War II, and the City leased the War Department the airport for a dollar a year, until the completion of the war.” “During the war the airport became the Thom- asville Army Air Field and opened on March 1, 1943,” Petty continues. “Initially, it opened as a