GUNTERSVILLE AL (from WHNT) - A plan more than a decade in the making may soon become a reality for the City of Guntersville.
It will take a signature on a nearly seven million dollar grant to finalize
plans to build a new runway for the Guntersville Airport. The Federal
Aviation Administration is funding 90 percent of the cost with the grant. The
City and the Alabama Department of Transportation will pick up the rest.
-Guntersville facebook image-
Airport Manager Matthew Metcalfe says the proposed site for the new runway is adjacent to the airport's current property. He says 250 acres of land will have to be cleared before they start building. "The plan is to build a five-thousand foot runway which would allow larger aircraft, turbo props, small jets, and even radio-piston aircraft that cannot currently come into the airport to use our runway."
Metcalfe says having the capacity to host bigger planes and jets will boost Guntersville's tourism and business economy, and overall grow the city and the airport itself. "We are, and have built ourselves as a general aviation airport, and built our reputation off that. The new runway will allow us to expand that, and expand our horizons that way."
Airport officials say they expect the grant to be finalized sometime in the next two weeks. Posted on: 4:36 pm, August 22, 2013, by Laura Christmas - WHNT