For 53 years, Golden Triangle Regional Airport has offered commercial flight service from western Lowndes County, bringing visitors from all over the world and connecting travelers with flights in Atlanta and now Dallas-Fort Worth.
Owned by six entities that Executive Director Matt Dowell calls “the three pairs” – Lowndes County/Columbus, Oktibbeha County/Starkville and Clay County/West Point – the airport has also served as a hub for economic development with eyes toward future expansion.
So what is GTRA’s impact on the region? With it sitting in Lowndes County, how do its other stakeholders benefit?
How did GTRA develop?
First opened in 1972, GTRA sits on about 1,000 acres off Highway 82 between Columbus and Starkville. It is governed by a five-member airport authority, with an appointed member each from Columbus, Starkville, Lowndes and Oktibbeha counties and a shared member between Clay County and West Point.
Dowell said the regional airport provides a way for each entity to leverage its combined assets for a larger service rather than compete with each other with smaller ones.
GTRA offers two daily flights to Atlanta through Delta. Starting May 5, SkyWest Airlines, a contractor for American Airlines, began offering a daily westbound flight to Dallas-Fort Worth.
Over the past two decades, GTRA has sat amid an industrial boom, with Steel Dynamics, PACCAR and Aluminum Dynamics developing on adjacent properties.
How do the stakeholders benefit?
Companies operating from GTRA property generated about $1.8 million in ad valorem taxes in 2024, Lowndes County Tax Assessor Greg Andrews said.
Despite the airport’s joint ownership, all that money went to Lowndes County and its schools.
That makes sense, Dowell said, because Lowndes County is solely responsible for maintaining public infrastructure around the airport, such as road maintenance.
But the airport’s impact goes far beyond taxes, Dowell said. In fact, he recently told the Rotary Club of Columbus that GTRA contributes more than $272 million in annual economic impact for the region. That’s just from travelers staying at hotels, renting cars, shopping and eating at restaurants.
Dowell said the whole region also benefits from the jobs created by the airport and surrounding industries.
What’s next for GTRA?
The airport is under contract to purchase 109 acres between the southern end of the airport runway and Airport Road, Dowell said. It offered roughly $2 million earlier this year to Ropp Family Enterprises, which has a Palmer, Arkansas mailing address, with grant funds covering about half and the six ownership entities committing the rest.
Dowell said he hopes the deal will close this fall. Once it does, he said the airport hopes to market the property for future development or expansion for aviation and aerospace companies. Three aerospace companies – Stark Aerospace, Aurora Flight Services and Airbus Helicopters – are already located on airport land. Betsy Young, vice president of economic development for the Golden Triangle Development LINK, told Lowndes County supervisors in April that purchasing the land will help to provide space for those companies to grow or for others to come in, preventing the area from becoming “landlocked.”
Editor’s note: Do you want answers to questions about the Golden Triangle? Each week, Dispatch reporters set out to explain or update a timely, practical issue. Email your question to [email protected].
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 29 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
