What does being local mean to you?

Hello, I'm Peter Noll, the general manager and CEO of Channel 11.

For the West Tennessee PBS team, it means being as local as our funding allows.

We don't sell commercials, we rely on your donations to bring you local programs and all PBS shows.

Consider making a monthly donation to Channel 11 for just $12.50.

For the cost of just one meal at a restaurant, you could help us be even more local.

Donate today.

Hello, I'm Don McCorry.

On this edition of Tennessee is Talking, the topic is the McKellar-Sipes Regional Airport.

Jackson is now connected directly to Atlanta, Georgia, and Chicago, Illinois, using 50 passenger jets complete with flight attendan.. Let the conversation begin.

That's so cool.

Then that's when I said that-- The problem with that idea is-- Wow, that was amazing.

Then I came up with a solution.

What was that about?

Here's what I think about it.

Now we're talking.

West Tennessee PBS presents Tennessee is Talking.

Let the conversation begin.

Thanks for joining the discussion here on Tennessee is Talking.

Hello, I'm Don McCorry.

Jackson is now directly connected to Chicago, Illinois, and Atlanta, Georgia, thanks to Denver Air Connection.

Here to tell us more is Steve Smith, Executive Director of the Jackson-Madison County Airport Authority, and Kyle Barron, Chief Community Development Officer for the Greater Jackson Chamber.

Thanks for joining us.

McKellar-Sipes Regional Airport has been meticulously building one of its runways.

Steve, can you tell us about that?

Well, this project, Don, has been an ongoing project.

I've been at the airport for 16 years.

When I came in 16 years ago, the first folder they handed me was a folder saying, "It's going to cost $6 million to rebuild our runway and we want you t.. this project and go with it."

16 years later and $24 million, we can see the end of this project in sight.

We finished paving last Friday.

We're working on getting all the numbers and stripes and all the little secret hieroglyphics that they put on runways that only pilot knows what they stand for.

Those are all going down and we're looking at probably three to six weeks being totally back in operation, but probably we'll start landing airplanes in the next couple of weeks.

Great, so the airport is kind of silent right now.

It's been a really nice laid-back summer.

[laughter] Not a lot of noise, no, not a lot of noise at all.

Kyle, can you tell us a little bit about how the collaboration between the Greater Jackson Chamber and the Airport Authority began?

Yes.

Early on in the process-- we are the only essential airport service in all of Te.. We're very fortunate to have the EAS as an opportunity for us.

What that does is it provides federal subsidies for us to get to a hub airport so we can continue our daily activities.

Early on in that process, every so many years you go through a rebid.

Fortunately, the airport reached out to us and said, "Hey, how can we work together to make sure that we end up with a higher quality product than what we've had over the last few iterations of our essential air service?"

We began to have great conversations with the airport, with our city and county officials, with our state officials, and our federally elected officials to begin to advocate for upgrades to our essential air service.

In that process, you pull together all the information that you're seeking, you put it out for bid and you see who's interested.

We actually were fortunate.

We had four different carriers that put in, two of them jet service, and two of them with the more propeller service.

We had some great conversations with all four of the different carriers and through that process selected Denver Air.

Denver Air Connection they were the ones who were able to bring in a 50-seat jet that goes on time every time pretty much.

It's a 98% on-time rate.

That is something that is drastically improved from what we have experienced over the last-- almost decade at the airport.

To go from about a 50% on time to 100% on time, now we have reliable transportation.

For the Chamber of Commerce, what that does for us is it gives us ways to get people to the world and the world to Jackson.

We get to use it as an economic developer and a driver for quality of life and continued growth.

It was a rigorous process.

We interviewed all four of them and throughout that worked with the board or the airport authority to select Denver Air.

You shared a little bit about this just moments ago, but Denver Air Connection, why were they the right fit other than just being a jet?

On time is a huge reliability through the roof.

In fact, in one presentation that we were giving to our state legislators, I was mentioning-- I was up there giving the talk that we had all ..

I hear this guy in the back, I said, "They're 98% on time."

I hear a guy in the back say, "That's a lie.

It's 100% for the last six month..

I'm like, "Okay, we need to update our slides."

The reliability is just a major factor.

Then having a jet is what allows that reliability.

Not only does it get us there faster, it's about half the time of travel.

You're in Atlanta in under an hour and in Chicago in just over an hour.

On top of that, it's able to take off and get above the clouds.

Which is something that the smaller planes just could not do.

It wasn't an apples-to-apples comparison.

One of the things that we had to work through in that process, and we're very thankful for our federal legislators that really stepped up for us in this, Congressman Kustoff, Senator Blackburn, Senator Hagerty.

Senator Hagerty had a group of us up in DC for Tennessee Tuesday.

We said, "Well, how can we help?"

We explained the situation with the airport.

They all three worked together to lobby Department of Transportation to increase our federal subsidy.

We took it from a little over 3 million to by the time it's all said and done, it's 35 million over four years.

It is a large increase in the subsidy.

That doesn't come lightly and it comes with high expectations.

We believe Denver Air is going to do a fantastic job of meeting those expectations.

It's also expectations of the community that they will utilize and get on the plane and go for a ride.

That's something we really-- Which leads me into my next question, Steve.

What can the passenger come to expect from Denver Air?

Well, the main thing you can come to expect is when you come to the airport, my job is to make sure the airport is clean, make sure you have a safe place to park, make sure that the airplanes are on time.

Then what the passenger expects is to be able to get where they are going in a timely manner for the advertised price and get home again.

That sometimes has not been really easy to do over the last several years.

We can get them out some days, we can't get them back the next.

As Kyle brought about saying about the jet, the jet has the ability to fly at 30, 40,000 feet.

We get above the weather.

The weather that's in route is not going to be an issue.

A lot of times going to Atlanta, weather's clear in Atlanta, weather's clear in Jackson, there's an occluded front somewhere between here in.. or here in Atlanta.

Jet's going to get over that about 90% of the time.

If Hurricane Milton's here, maybe not, but most of the time we're going to get around those.

That's the thing that we want the passenger to see and the passenger to expect.

Two, jet service, jet travel is what passengers expect today.

In the 1960s, we had DC-9s flying for Delta Airlines from Memphis to Jack.. to Nashville every day.

Then because of a lot of different things, mostly economic indicators, we had to get away from that.

With the economic boom that's going into Jackson right now and the.. that are building, the people that are moving in, what people expect.

We are really fortunate to have the greater Jackson Chamber.. with the airport in this and say, "Let's fix this problem because the community cannot grow if they don't have reliable air service."

Is it too soon to talk about if there will be multiple flights to both of these destinations in a 24-hour period?

It's not premature, but it may be a little bit early to start getting people's hopes up for that.

I think we've got to fill the airplane first.

We've had some discussions on that.

Some of the funny things that we recruited this airline, 50 passengers a day, two flights a day is 100 passengers.

Then it dawned on us, we only had 54 parking spaces.

[laughs] That makes sense.

If you come to the airport today,.. very soon.

We've already been working to make that happen.

Then the second thing was, we didn't have but 34 chairs in the terminal.

All of these things-- and we've been very lucky because our city and county government have responded to these off-budget issues that have come up since the August 8th announcement.

We're doing really well getting ready for it.

I think the passenger's going to enjoy the experience.

I think one of the things that our city and county have absolutely responded, this has really been a whole West Tennessee effort.

No doubt.

In every instance where we would ask our federal legislators for help, it wasn't, "Hey, this is the Greater Jackson Chamber, the McKellar-Sipes Regional Airport, the City of Jackson, the County of Madison.

It was, and 17 of our closest friends, because all of the counties that surround us put in letters of support.

All of the cities that surround us put in letters of support for the impact that they knew that airport getting a jet would have.

Truly it allows us to continue to be the capital of rural West Tennessee.

All of West Tennessee is going to benefit from this jet being here, and getting the improvements out at the airport are going to be critical to that.

Right now as they start, 12 flights per week is what their contract is for.

That's why you see one morning to Atlanta, one afternoon to Chicago and back.

That's how you get your 12 flights.

Tell me a little bit about what some of the other facilities and services are available out at McKellar-Sipes right now.

Well, McKellar-Sipes basically is a full-service regional airport.

We have the ability to fuel aircraft, and we do a lot of that.

We have hangar space available for local aircraft that are here.

We have two separate mechanic services that work off of the airport.

They're independent of the county or the city, but they have their own businesses and they work there.

We do have special things that we do for pilots.

In the new service that's coming, we'll have a lab service.

A lot of the business jets have laboratories in them, and they have to go to a larger airport to have that laboratory service.

We're working on that.

We also are working with Denver Air on being able to de-ice aircraft .. and February.

With a lot of our business aircraft now coming from the north-.. in Chicago, Michigan, that area, all up in there, sometimes the weather getting in and getting out in January and February especially sometimes can be a little bit dicey.

The ability to de-ice those aircraft where if they come down .. or two with us, they can get out and get home.

That's a big thing that we have never done.

There's a lot there.

We're working with a new parking lot.

We're working on charging stations for some of the electric vehicles.

Also, there's some private enterprise working around the airport as well, where there'll be some things in the area out there that we've had to go into Jackson, for example, for gasoline and things like that.

With the industrial development that's going on now, some of the private industries beginning to take up some of that slot.

I think one thing too is for every regular Joe is you call your aunt and tell her to come visit, there's Hertz rental car as well.

-That's True.

Then you can get a rental car on site, so no more having to get up and go get auntie when she comes to town.

She can get a rental car and get to the house.

[laughter] Family can continue cooking.

-Absolutely.

-I'm happy to interrupt there.

I had the pleasure of touring the airport last year.

One of the things we just talked about there was the flight school.

Do you still have the flight school there?

We do have the flight school.

It's done very well, especially this summer because we were closed to larger jets, but the flight school was able to operate off the shorter runway and they flew every day.

We've had great weather and we're still turning out young pilots.

That's important in this business to actually have a pipeline because if you read anything about aviation, it'll tell you there's a pilot shortage right now.

That's because the military doesn't train our pilots like we did for many, many years.

Now, we have to do it on a personal level and .. is doing a good job of that, along with about 17 other colleges across the United States.

We're excited about the flight school.

They've had a really good summer and I think right now they're running about five or six aircraft and about three different instructors, so it's a going concern.

Great.

We talked about Atlanta.

We talked about Chicago.

Will there be other destinations for maybe smaller aircraft when the facility reopens later on to other destinations?

There's a lot of conversation, Don, going on about that.

One of the things that we've always had is a commuter-type flight to Nashville or one of the-- like St. Louis.

St. Louis has always been a great destination for us.

It doesn't take a jet to go to St. Louis, so there could be some other aircraft involved in a real commuter-type operation to open up some of those other markets.

Right now, that's not covered under the Essential Air Service.

The Essential Air Service was created in 1977 after the deregulation of the airline, so cities like Jackson would not lose all of their air service.

All that Essential does is connect us to the main hub.

Our main hub, we're doing a split hub, is Atlanta and Chicago.

There have been a number of news stories about this $31 million that has been made available.

Can you tell me about some of the projects that will be included in that?

Well, I alluded when we first started about $24 million for the runway.

When I came, it was going to be $4 million, and then it became $7 million.

Then when we really got ready to bid it, we thought we were bidding a $14 million project, and when we bid the project, it was $24 million.

Actually, it was a $22 million project.

When we started, we found out we had something wrong, and we had to fix it, and that cost another $2 million.

That being said, that money came from just a cornucopia of places.

We have federal money involved in that.

We have state money involved in that.

We have city money involved in that, county money involved in that, and probably some other monies from different things.

We just spent $1.2 million rebuilding our control tower.

It's really a feather in Jackson's cap that a airport the size of ours has an operating control tower, and we looked for some of the congressmen that we had some years past that had great vision on what Jackson could be.

Our tower hadn't had any love and affection since about 2005.

The bipartisan infrastructure law, which creates a lot of different monies for transportation, was able to help us with a $1.2 million grant, and we've completely reb.. the control tower.

Both not only inside where the contro.. but all the equipment that they use as well.

Then $6 million of that came from state and from the National Guard Bureau, our National Guard facility that's in Jackson.

A lot of people don't understand our helicopter facility, AASF number three.

There are three of these across the state.

One's in Chattanooga, one's in Knoxville, one's here that are helicopter facilities.

They are full-blown working air bases, and so there's never been any work done on this one since probably the year 2000.

They came in and completely redid all of the concrete work at that, and they've changed their helicopters.

For a while, they were flying the little Apaches, and now they're flying Blackhawks, the big black helicopters you see flying all over.

The reason for that is that's a search and rescue helicopter, and we're sitting right in the middle of a New Madrid fault, and everybody keeps saying we're on borrowed time.

We had a governor a few years back that really pulled a lot of us together into a group and said let's look at New Madrid and see what we can do.

Having that rescue helicopter unit here in Jackson that would work all of West Tennessee was one of our past governor's vision for what would help, and he made that come true, and it's been a real plus for Jackson.

Yes.

The enhancements to the c.. has to be reassuring to all of the passengers in terms of their safety and effectiveness of the airlines.

It does.

Kyle, I'm sure you have talked about this within the greater Jacks.. but what impact is Denver Air Connections going to have on tourism in Jackson?

Tourism is an interesting one.

We talk a lot from an economic development standpoint and from tourism.

When we were actually speaking with the commissioner over tourism, explaining to him, "Hey, we would really like to get your support.

We're going to be seeking this."

"Absolutely, we got you.

No problem.

By the way, I already have billboards in Atlanta.

I already have billboards in Chicago.

I look forward to writing Jackson on them."

Those are some of the conversations that we had from the early standpoint there.

Any time that you-- really all of West Tennessee, we had two choices when it came to air travel.

You were going to drive to Memphis or you were going to drive to Nashville.

Now, because of the fact that we have a subsidized flight, it might be cheaper for you to drive from Nashville to Jackson and park your car in Jackson, and fly to Atlanta or Chicago.

We're going to get a little bit of an uptick there as far as tourism goes.

We also have an opportunity to provide tourism into Jackson.

One of the common questions we get over at the chamber is, what's the news on Great Wolf Lodge?

It's continuing to move forward, but that will hopefully be another avenue for it to move forward as well, and that will be able to bring some people to town to come and see that as well.

Great, great.

You probably have already etched out your long-term.. for what you'd like to see McKellar-Sipes Regional Airport to become.

Let's see over the next 10 years.

Can you share any of those tentative plans with us at this point?

Well, I don't think there's anybody on my staff that d.. at a point where we're going to grow expeditiously.

That's going to happen.

That airport's going to happen.

Then we've got to look at extending the length of the runway.

We've got some property out there we need to acquire, but a 10,000-foot runway would change the size of the aircraft that come and go.

I tell everybody when I'm asked that question, there's a little airport in central Florida called Sarasota Bradenton.

It's just a great little airport, and when I first started flying in and out, it was just the size of Jackson.

Now it has grown and it's blossomed, and all of that west Gulf Coas.. is growing now down there, and it's because of the airports like Sarasota Bradenton.

I see Jackson someday in 10 years.

We're having some of the amenities that wil.. Kyle and I have been working on an RFP for a hotel.

We have almost a thousand acres out there in that airport campus, and a lot of it is right on 223 Smith Lane.

We're looking at what we can do with that property, whether or not we have one convenience store going in, do we need some other kind of fast service out there, or what else would work, but a hotel in an airport it's a given.

-That's great for business travel.

-Yes, it's great for b.. We think that we have talked to several people that are interested.

We've got a pretty good RFP, and so as that takes place, that's something else that you'll see that we add to that toolbox.

Tell us when and where interested passengers can go to find tickets, and when will service begin?

You can go to flydac.com, Denver Air Connection, flydac.com, and you can book tickets today.

I don't know what day this is airing, but I promise today you can.

[laughter] Flights will start December 2nd, and so there's opportunities for you to book those already.

Probably one of the best things about this is they have interline agreements with Delta, American, and United.

When you go through TSA in Jackson, and the worst possible.. your number 50 out of 50, right?

It's much faster than any other airport.

You can get on the plane in Jackson and get to wherever your destination is going to be without having to go back through security.

Your baggage is going to follow you, and you're able to get to where you need to be.

It is really going to be an amazing opportunity for all of West Tennessee to get to use our airport.

We're excited about it.

Any final thoughts you want us to know before.. Well, one of the things we love to tell people, especially if you're flying out of Atlanta, is there's a great non-stop flight from Atlanta to London.

You can get on the airplane in Jackson.

We're not going to charge you right now to park your car, and you can fly to Atlanta in your one-stop from being in London.

That is just a remarkable thing for West Tennessee, and it will be utilized, I'm sure.

-Let's see if we can get some of our friends in the UK to back us on that.

You know we had Tony Blair here a couple of years ago.

We'll get him to come back.

-Get him to come back.

Sadly, we are out of time for this edition of Tennessee is Talking.

We want to thank Steve Smith and Kyle Barron for stopping by telling us about the McKellar-Sipes Regional Airport.

If you want to re-watch this program or share it with a friend, remember it can be streamed anytime on the PBS app, along with all local Channel 11 programs.

You can also watch it on the West Tennessee PBS YouTube channel and on westtnpbs.org.

Keep the conversation going by following West Tennessee PBS on social media.

Until next time, keep on talking, Tennessee.

Do you have a topic you'd like to see discussed on a future episode of Tennessee is Talking?

Maybe you want to be a guest and have something to talk about.

Send your ideas to tnistalking@westtnpbs.org.

Include all your contact information and let the conversation continue.

[music] Tennessee is Talking is a presentation of West Tennessee PBS with the goal of bringing people together, sharing ideas, thoughts, and different perspectives, learning from each other, and sharing a civil and respectful discussion.

Tennessee is Talking, the show that brings West Tennessee together.

[music] It's all about home.

Channel 11 WLJT.

It's all about home.

PBS for West Tennessee.

It's all about home.

Remember home with a legacy.

It's all about home.

Bringing the best to your family.

It's all about home.

PBS Passport gives you access to a phenomenal library of drama, history, science, and performance programs.

You can watch whenever you want with the PBS app.

Passport is the most popular member benefit we've ever offered.

Did you know that you can receive access to Passport by donating your car, truck, or boat?

Well, you can.

Put that vehicle you no longer need to good use.

Go online or give us a call right now to donate it.

Thanks.

The program you've been watching was made possible through the generous financial support of West Tennessee PBS viewers like you.

Please visit westtnpbs.org and make a donation today so that we can continue to make local programs like this possible.

Thank you.

[music] It's all about home.