"Airport Dreams"

Monday, August 9, 2004

EDITORIAL
Airport Dreams
Brunswick County leaders should join Horry in regional airport
discussion
The Myrtle Beach (SC) Sun News


It's no surprise that the Brunswick County, N.C., leaders who organized
last week's exploratory talks toward a regional passenger airport met
with negativity from the N.C. aviation director and officials who run
passenger and general-aviation airports in southeastern North Carolina.
Protection of existing turf - and revenue streams - is always the first
impulse of such people. Such people are not noted for visionary thinking
on aviation.

The Shallotte-area big-picture thinkers who rightly saw their county as
a logical place for a passenger facility serving air travelers from
Wilmington, N.C., to Myrtle Beach to Florence and beyond should not let
this chilly reception deter them. Instead, they should initiate talks
with like-minded Horry County and Pee Dee folks who understand that
existing passenger airports can't meet the region's long-term needs.

The population in this lovely part of the world is growing. If public
and private leaders on both sides of the state line want the region to
be more than a destination for tourists and retirees - if they want it
to develop as a business and manufacturing center, too - they'll need to
include a regional airport in their long-term plans.

As Horry County Council Chairwoman Liz Gilland told The Sun News last
week, the terminal the county is building on the west side of the Myrtle
Beach International Airport runway can meet the county's near-term
needs, but not its long-term needs. A regional airport is needed, too.
The logical place to build it is near the state line - maybe even
astraddle it.

The regional-advancement group forming in Horry County in the aftermath
of last May's Growth Summit likely will work on the regional-airport
idea. A Brunswick County component would add depth and meaning to that
discussion. The big thinkers up that way should consider joining in.


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