Airport Authority holds monthly meeting
The Airport Authority Board of Directors held their morning monthly meeting on July 8 to discuss future projects and other matters. (Record Photo/Nick Sellers)
By Nick Sellers | Staff Reporter
HUNTSVILLE – The Huntsville-Madison County Airport Authority Board of Directorsmet July 8 for its regular monthly meeting and discussed fluctuations in airport commerce and activity as well as potential projects for the Jetplex Industrial Park.
Brooks Kracke, director of the Jetplex Industrial Park, addressed a certain Florida company’s consideration to move its operations to the facility. The founder, Kracke said, recently toured the area for a second time and is motivated by the company’s present environment to move.
“[He is] very concerned about crime rates,” Kracke said. “They’re in an area now that just over the last 20 years, as I was told, they’re scared to go to work some days.”
The Board has not divulged the name of the company, but it reportedly specializes in the production of medical devices.
Huntsville is among several other Alabama cities that are candidates for the company’s new location, including Athens, Cullman and Scottsboro.
Another project potentially landing in the Jetplex Industrial Park is a recently revived automotive enterprise.
We’re still one of 10 sites [for the project], so they’ve got to come down between three and five sites in the southern United States and Mexico,” Kracke said. “So we’re still continuing to talk to them as they make their short list selections.”
Other items addressed were the 5.9 percent increase in passenger traffic from June 2013 to June 2014 and the increase in a security fee on new tickets sold. The fee on many new tickets will go from $5 to $11.20 to help fund the Transportation Security Administration.
The fee increase highlights the existing issue of Huntsville International Airport being one of the most expensive airports of which to travel through in the nation.
Although the July Board meeting was the first since the plane crash on June 18 that killed three people, the crash was mentioned only once in passing, by Kracke.
