New Natchez-Adams County Airport manager Ronald Hall has blown into the community recently and he’s brought with him a renewed sense of hope for the region’s largest airport.

Hall, who comes to Natchez with many years of aviation management experience, has dreams of realizing the airport’s potential as an economic development recruitment tool in at least three distinctive ways.

First, Hall realizes that for many large companies considering Natchez as a home, they very well might arrive on a corporate aircraft. Because of that, he understands that the airport needs to be aesthetically pleasing as well as functional.

For many of those first-time visitors, the airport is the first impression they get of Natchez. Do they want to see a facility whose best days are behind it, or one that looks clean, modern and well kept? The answer is obvious and Hall is working on getting a plan built to create the necessary changes.

Hall also realizes that many, many pilots traveling across the region — corporate as well as private pilots — can choose where they land to refuel their aircraft and Natchez’s central location along several common flight paths makes it ideally suited to attract more business.

Hall also understands that over time the airport could host a vocational training program to help train aircraft mechanics, which would give those students highly sought skills. Such a school could potentially lure aviation companies to locate in the area.

Hall is filled with enthusiasm and we are thrilled by that and wish him the best as he works to make the airport a jewel in the area’s crown of many assets.