Golden Triangle Regional Airport


Golden Triangle Regional Airport is a public use airport in Lowndes County, Mississippi. The airport is located approximately midway between the cities of Starkville, Columbus, and West Point, Mississippi, and serves the surrounding Golden Triangle region of Mississippi and parts of West Alabama. GTR is used for general and military aviation, charter aircraft, and by commercial airline ExpressJet, operating as Delta Connection.
As per Federal Aviation Administration records, the airport had 35,669 passenger boardings in calendar year 2008, 36,275 enplanements in 2009, and 36,329 in 2010. It is included in the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015, which categorized it as a primary commercial service airport. It is the third-busiest commercial airport in the state of Mississippi.
GTR is the nucleus of a new industrial complex in northeast Mississippi. American Eurocopter, a subsidiary of EADS North America, moved into an helicopter production plant built by the airport and leased to the company on airport property in 2004. In 2007 American Eurocopter finished the second phase of the project, a facility built primarily to manufacture and assemble the new U.S. Army UH-72A Lakota Light Utility Helicopter. Severstal North America opened a steel mini-mill in an adjacent site in October 2007 and immediately began construction on phase II, bringing total investment in the plant to $1.8 billion. Paccar, parent company of Peterbilt, Kenworth and DAF trucks has operated a truck engine manufacturing facility since late 2010 that is located to the north of the airport. Other industry, many with international roots, continues to locate at the industrial park adjacent to the airport. The area has two "Megasites" adjacent to the airport that were certified under the . In addition, two aerospace companies, Aurora Flight Sciences and Stark Aerospace, built facilities on airport property and primarily manufacture unmanned aerial vehicles. Stark Aerospace is the newly formed subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries.

Facilities and aircraft

Golden Triangle Regional Airport covers an area of 1,000 acres at an elevation of 264 feet above mean sea level. It has one runway designated 18/36 with an asphalt surface measuring 8,002 by 150 feet. This runway is long enough to accommodate Boeing 757s and 767s flown by college football teams visiting Mississippi State University and the Bulldogs to their away games.
For the 12-month period ending December 31, 2011, the airport had 29,864 aircraft operations, an average of 81 per day: 50% general aviation, 41% military, and 9% air taxi. At that time there were 37 aircraft based at this airport: 68% single-engine, 16% multi-engine, 3% jet, and 14% helicopter.
Because of the projected growth, in the years since 2003 the airport has spent significant resources improving and upgrading the infrastructure. In 2003 a $1.6 million air traffic control tower was opened to maintain the safety of the flying operation and is manned under the FAA's Contract Tower Program. The runway was repaved and strengthened to take commercial aircraft up to a Boeing 757. Two additional parking ramps were constructed and the two existing ramps were rehabilitated. The terminal has had minor renovations but a major expansion was completed in 2010. A runway expansion from 6,497' to 8,000' was completed in June 2011.

Airline and destination

offering scheduled passenger service to non-stop destination:

Statistics

RankAirportPassengersAirline
1Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport 39,000Delta Connection

Airline history

, a Republic Airways Holdings company, also operated flights under the Delta Connection banner early in 2006. Until Delta's withdrawing "focus city" operations from Dallas-Fort Worth in February 2005, GTR had one flight per day to DFW. Four ASA flights per day to Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport remained until late 2005. In 2006, there were three flights per day to ATL.
Mesaba Aviation, d.b.a. Northwest Airlink, also operated flights to Memphis from GTR, but they ceased these operations in 2003 citing a desire to not compete with the new regional jet service being started by ASA as they replaced the Embraer fleet.
With the acquisition of Northwest Airlines by Delta Air Lines in 2008 Delta took over scheduling the Northwest flights in the Memphis hub. On January 27, 2009 Delta announced the resumption of service between GTR and Memphis on Mesaba Airlines, now operating as a Delta Connection carrier. The new service began on May 4, 2009 and supplements the Atlantic Southeast Airlines service to Atlanta. In 2010, Pinnacle Airlines started flying CRJ-200s as Delta started phasing the Saab-340 aircraft out of their Connection Carrier fleet.
In June 2019, Delta Connection added a fourth flight to Atlanta, adding an early afternoon flight.