A curious removal on the Tuesday, September 2nd agenda at the Augusta Richmond County Commission meeting is shedding light on efforts to bring a 3rd airline to the Augusta Regional Airport.
ABD received a copy of the agenda, which read in part:
“Currently, AGS staff are in advanced negotiations with a prospective airline,” read the agenda item. “If this comes to fruition, the prospective airline will provide direct service to/from Augusta to two new markets with the possibility of additional future routes.
Following a Wednesday, September 3rd meeting of an Aviation Commission committee meeting, ABD asked Airport Executive Director Herbert Judon, Jr., why this item, which was a request for $1 million in the FY 2026 General Fund operating budget, was withdrawn.
The money would have been used to support efforts to bring a third airline to the airport.
“We just need some more time to refine this process,” Herbert Judon, Jr., airport Executive Director, explained for ABD. “But we’re still very much aggressively moving forward with trying to not only bring in new air service, but also to pull together a community consortium to help with it.”
Judon has a long-term plan to accomplish this.
He is hoping to create a resource fund with other public and private sector donors to create a local pool of cash to develop a Minimum Revenue Guarantee (MRG) to incentivize new airline service in Augusta.
ABD will continue to follow this developing story and bring you the latest from future meetings.
CURRENT PROJECTS AND FUTURE POSSIBILITIES
Members of an Augusta Aviation Commission committee were briefed Wednesday on current projects and future possibilities.
The Opportunity Ad Hoc Committee is looking for ways to grow Augusta Regional Airport (AGS) and add additional revenue streams.
Committee Chairman Davis Beman told ABD that the recent reconfiguring of Gates 3 and 4, the addition of two new jet bridges, and construction on additional Transportation Security Administration (TSA) security checkpoints all play into the effort to expand commercial air service.
“We’re starting to look at what areas are existing today that we can grow into, and what areas we would need in the future,” he said. “That could be onsite, it could be offsite within our current footprint, or otherwise. But the other thing is, we need other buckets of revenue. One of those is our private air service side, hangar side, and other ancillary businesses that do business on the airport. And so that’s important to figure out, what land area can we develop?”
Diane Johnston, the airport’s Director of Innovation and Business Development, told committee members the airport must submit a 20-year Master Plan to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). It must show the Airport Layout Plan (ALP) and the Capital Improvement Plan (CIP).
“Anything that we want to build on our airport has to be on our ALP, and it has to be approved by the FAA. So, we do that in advance,” she said, “We put some generalities in there, just so that they know we may have some hangers shown there. We don’t have specific dimensions or numbers or anything like that, but they know that our plan is to build hangars in particular areas, so they’ve given us approval for that already.”
Johnston said they have land available to lease along General Perry Smith Parkway, where additional hangars can be constructed. She said they have multiple people looking at the property in the southeast quadrant for putting up hangers. The northwest quadrant may be used for executive storage hangars, while the southeast quadrant will be industrial types of development.
Judon said all aviation commission committees play a role in growing the airport, but the Opportunity Ad Hoc Committee helps the commission think creatively in terms of development on and off-site. He believes it shows AGS and the surrounding areas are an attractive spot in which to locate.
“I think seeing that this committee exists, the other airlines say, ‘Oh, look at what they’re doing. They know the process.’ I think when airlines see the public and the private sector in a community, that they’re supporting the airport and they’re supporting air service in particular, I think that bodes well. So, I think these types of committees, when the airlines read and hear about this, can only bode well for us.”
