The airport is a “strong piece of the economic engine” of the city and Johnson County, Tharp said. “It's a really good deal for the city, and that's even before you factor in the rest of the economic impact that the airport does.” “Basically for every dollar the city's putting into the airport, just off the bat it's getting about $20 worth of improvements on that investment,” Tharp said. These funds are used for grant matching, he added. The city invests $100,000 in the airport as part of the capital improvement program, Tharp said. But for the past five years, the airport has been self-sufficient in covering its operational costs without additional tax dollars.

The airport’s budget used to be “heavily dependent” on city tax dollars to support it, Tharp said. “It was a lot of work to take the airport from what from what it was back in the ’80s and ’90s, and make it something that worked well with today,” said Tharp, who has worked at the airport for 17 years.īefore being airport manager, Tharp was an intern and then an operation specialist.

The facility celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2018. The airport had a “major facelift of all of its facilities” throughout the past two decades, including repair maintenance work, rebuilding the runways and adding hangar space, Tharp said. The airport also has meeting rooms, a viewing area and informational displays about its aviation history. Tharp said the airport has 90 based aircraft and roughly 30,000 operations per year. Medical traffic, flight instruction, recreational flying and agricultural operations also fall under general aviation. You will begin to receive our Daily Business News updates.

Iowa city airport ford tir-motor