Although I’m not one to advocate picketing at Wal-Mart, I do believe that supporting your local community and local businesses is very important. This includes the local airport, which brings commerce unseen into many small communities.
For many around here, the “local airport” is St. Louis’ Lambert International; but it isn’t, it’s Williamson County Regional Airport, or Southern Illinois Airport, or Harrisburg-Raleigh Airport — or whatever small, possibly even unattended airport is closest to you.
Pilots are not the only ones who can support the local airport. For example, Marion holds airshows, which generate revenue of the airport and the FBO. Anyone can attend one of them.
We are fortunate that our airport isn’t tightly surrounded by residential neighborhoods, so noise complaints are few and far between. For some airports, it’s a daily thing. With the popularity of business jets, such as the Cessna Citation, noise levels can be quite high, for a few seconds. Some people know it’s no big deal, but others are very vocal about their desires to stop the noise over their homes.
Airports can help, by altering approach and departure procedures, establishing noise abatement procedures, and restricting operations at late-night hours. No matter what is done, airplanes still make noise, and they still have to takeoff and land during the night. It’s up to everyone in the community to pull together and support the airport, to keep it an important component of the local economy.
What few people realize is with the popularity of private charter flights, big businesses often don’t use the airlines, they rent or charter a private jet into the closest airport to the office their visiting — this is not the St. Louis airport, it’s often Marion, Carbondale, or Harrisburg.
Marion currently has daily commercial service up to St. Louis from Great Lakes Airlines on Beech 1900D’s, a twin-turboprop airliner. I know several people who would never think of getting on such a “small” plane. I for one, book those flights as often as it is practical.
For those of us who fly, it’s more than a hobby, it’s a passion, it’s an addiction, it’s surreal. All of that disappears if the airports close. Not to mention the economic impact to the area.