It is well-known that an airport serves as both a mode of transportation and an economic engine for community. Newnan Coweta Airport manager Calvin Walker at the Nov. 3 meeting of the Coweta County Commission updated the board on airport operations and the local economic impact of the publicly-owned facility.

Walker said general aviation activities last year accounted for approximately $1.2 million in fuel sales and taxes. Another economic impact comes in the form of wages, with the airport’s various businesses providing jobs for 162 people, Walker said.

Newnan Coweta Airport currently houses 153 propeller planes and nine jet aircraft. Falcon Aviation will be adding to that number in the near term, Walker said, with another 40 aircraft.

He said the airport provides a viable form of transportation for the Coweta area. A sampling of the regional and national companies utilizing the airport for business purposes in the past year includes Belks, PetSmart, Kroger, Hobby Lobby and Dillard’s.

Walker said all available hangar space is currently under lease. And looking to the future, he said a new taxi-way is expected in 2010.

One of the airport’s newer tenants is Falcon Aviation. Previously based at Falcon Field in Peachtree City, the Falcon Flight Academy announced its intention to move its headquarters and mechanics operations to Coweta in September 2008, a move that had been in the works for nearly three years.

Falcon cited a less than adequate space for the growing training academy at its Peachtree City location, company officials said at the time.

The 270-acre, publicly-owned Newnan Coweta Airport is open year-round and features one runway 5,500-foot in length and 100 feet in width.

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