Business View Magazine | Volume 8, Issue 10

245 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 8, ISSUE 10 BROADBAND ELECTRIC GAS WASTEWATER WATER MCKELLAR-S I PES REGIONAL A I RPORT home or not working at all. Attendance was record numbers.” Currently, this wave of interest hasn’t died off and has encouraged the school to consider purchasing a simulator, something it hasn’t had for 10 to 15 years. As more students graduate, some of those new pilots will be purchasing an aircraft and looking for hangar space. And what no one could have predicted was that the corporations were going to up the size of their fleets. The problem of a lack of space became evident when the manager of the FBO informed the airport management that they had run out of hangar space during mid-summer 2021. And it’s not just the airfield but office space as well. Management at McKellar-Sipes Regional Airport has identified a need to source new revenue, as the Tennessee aviation sector was dealt a heavy blow when the governor of the state reduced the annual budget by $40 million. In Smith’s opinion this budget reduction has had a lingering effect on the local aviation industry. He reports, “This has almost single-handedly stopped modernization of a lot of airports, including ours. It’s also the reason that we put hangar projects, runway overlays, and a lot of other things on hold.” Currently, the airport management is in the early stages of sourcing new avenues of funding. One project that MKL has on the cards now is resurfacing the runways, which will start in 2023. And, more recently, they have introduced improved technology. In 2015, the City of Jackson announced their 1 Gig plan, which was a project to upgrade its fiber network that offers internet