NATCHEZ, Miss. – The Adams County Board of Supervisors is allocating $200,000 for the airport to combine with $800,000 from the state to build a hangar.
While the Mississippi Department of Transportation awarded the grant to the Natchez-Adams County Airport in April, local government had to come up with the required match to be an eligible recipient.
Adams County’s $200,000 match is to come from borrowed funds and revenues from selling timber cut on airport property.
Plans for building the 10-unit hangar costing about $1 million comes as the county-owned airport has been undergoing various other improvements that include new runway surfaces and taxiway lights.
Also “moving forward” are efforts to lure an airline to serve the area, said airport Director Richard Nelson.
Despite the airport in 2022 receiving a $750,000 federal subsidy to help entice a commuter airline, none have been landed. However, Nelson noted last month that meetings are continuing with various airlines’ executives to persuade them to green-light regular flights to and from Adams County.
They have included Utah-based SkyWest Airlines and Florida-based Southern Airways in recent months, according to Nelson.
The Natchez-Adams County Airport has been without regular passenger airline service for three decades. It had commercial planes landing at Hardy-Anders Field between the early 1950s and late 1980s and again briefly in the mid-1990s, according to the airport’s historical records.
In addition to the $800,000 the state Department of Transportation granted for a hangar in April, the airport got $900,000 the U.S. Congress appropriated in March to purchase a fire truck.
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