Officials at the Copiah County Airport are hoping that a newrunway will help bring more traffic not only to their facility, butalso to their county.

Airport associate Johnny Sharp said a $144,013 AirportImprovement Program (AIP) grant will go toward construction of asecond, improved runway that could be the beginning of a lot offorward motion for the airport. Sharp said officials are hoping foranother $140,000 by the end of the year, and those two combinedsums should purchase the land for the project and get theconstruction under way.

“When they get it purchased, the other grant money comes in tostart pushing the dirt, which they should be doing by this timenext year,” he said. “A year from that time they should be donewith the runway, so we could be looking at about two years beforecompletion.”

Sharp said that once that second runway is in, it should add amuch-needed element to grant applications for additional hangars onscene. Furthermore, Sharp said when the airport is home to 20airplanes, it also boosts possibilities for grants.

“That opens a door with the federal government to get a wholebunch of grants to do other improvements, as well as to gaincapability to do an instrumental approach,” he said.

The Instrument Landing System, or ILS approach, is used when fogor other weather situations makes the runway hard to see and thepilot must land the plane based solely on his instrument panel.Sharp said the capability allows the pilot to fly all the way tothe ground without being able to actually see it.

“Once you get that and the 20 airplanes, there’s major fundingavailable, so we’re hoping the new runway will draw more people tothe airport so we’ll have more airplanes for the hangars,” hesaid.

Once those additional hangars are built, Sharp said hopefullysome of the people on the waiting list for surrounding airporthangars could put their planes in Copiah County.

As such, the airport has been working toward the realization ofthese goals for about six years, Sharp said.

“This has been a long time coming, and we’ve still got two orthree years to go before we’re done,” he said.

Airport manager Lisa Mosley said the airport family is thrilledto see the positive momentum begin to pick up.

“We’re very excited, once we get the longer runway and theinstrumental approach, it means that the larger airplanes can landon that runway and bring us more traffic,” she said. “And there aremore possibilities for airplanes to be hangared there, and it couldbring more business to the area, because right now we can’taccommodate those jets.”

Meanwhile, Copiah County is one of 30 Mississippi airportfacilities that recently received $8.6 million in federal AIPgrants awarded by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

“These grants, large and small, will advance safety and overallefficiency at local airport facilities,” U.S. Sen. Thad Cochransaid in a release announcing the grants. “In doing so, theseprojects will help our counties and cities offer aviation servicesthat are important for expanding economic development.”

Fellow U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker agreed, adding that strongairports equal a stronger Mississippi.

“This grant funding will help strengthen Mississippi’s aviationinfrastructure and improve safety at our local airports,” saidWicker. “It is critical that our airports operate safely andefficiently so they can continue to help keep passengers andcommerce moving across our state.”