Business View Magazine - October 2018

124 125 increased the usage of the Airport.We have a category 1 ILS (instrument landing system) and an AWOS (automated weather observing system) weather system on the field.We have 17 han- gars and two aircraft maintenance facilities on the field.We have a smaller one for small, sin- gle and twin-engine maintenance, but we also have a jet facility called CATS, Carolina Aviation Technical Ser- vices, and they recently have become a certi- fied maintenance cen- ter for Cessna Citation Jets along with Dornier 328 jets.We have seen a lot of increase in terms of people coming to them.” The City of Statesville owns the Airport and Ferguson is the sole employee. Statesville Parks and Recreation manage the upkeep and mow the grass, while Building and Maintenance oversees some of the buildings. All of this is made possible because of the FBO (Fixed Base Operator), States- ville Flying Service, a private operator using its own employees, which fills out the daily opera- tions. “We don’t have any secondary businesses at the Airport,” says Fergu- son, “but adjacent to the Airport, we have Brad Keselowski’s truck racing shop, we have GMS racing, which is an Xfinity team and a truck team. The ma- jor sponsor to GMS is Allegiant Airlines and then there is another, XPO Logistics, which is a freight forwarder. But they are all off the Airport. But, at the same time, as it relates to the opera- tion of the airport, we are self-sufficient.We make enough profit from fuel, flowage fees, and land rentals that we are able to cover the expenses of STATESVILLE REGIONAL AIRPORT operating the Airport.” In terms of improvement, Statesville Airport is currently undergoing the construction of a new parallel taxiway on the south side of the runway. There is a full parallel taxiway on the north side and this south side, partial taxiway will most- ly serve the NASCAR and Lowe’s hangars. As it stands, in order to access the hangars, it is neces- sary to cross a live runway. This is a $9.8 million project, which is being fully funded by the North Carolina Department of Transportation. “We are also looking at getting a grant from the North Carolina Department of Transportation to construct pad-ready sites for corporate aircraft,” Ferguson points out. “We are looking to get a $2.5 million grant to grade 33 acres, which we acquired for $1.3 million.We are going to grade it, put a small taxi lane in, and relocate utilities so that if someone comes to us and says ‘Hey, we want to build a hangar,’ we have a pad all ready to go. That sort of ready-to-go expansion is one of the things we are lacking here. The DOT has given us tremendous support. Just in the last five years, DOT has given us $12,658,278 in grants for improvements.” “I hope that within five years, we will have the second phase of the southern taxiway project completed, and that will give us a taxiway the full size of the runway,” Ferguson muses. “One of the long-term projects would be that, if demand requires it, we extend the runway 1,000 feet to the east, but we would have to have some pret-