OP-ED
I grew up in a tiny town. We didn’t have much, but we had an airport. That’s where I learned, as the saying goes, a mile of highway will take you a mile. A mile of runway will take you anywhere.
I’ve spent 25 years as a pilot and the better part of the last decade advising clients on aircraft acquisitions and management. As Vice Chair of the South Texas Business Aviation Association, a regional affiliate of the National Business Aviation Association, I work with the operators, flight departments, and businesses that depend on general aviation airports every day.
Business aircraft often operate beyond the major commercial hubs, and small airports need that traffic and investment to stay viable. That relationship runs in both directions. But the case for these airports goes well beyond corporate flight departments.
Across Texas, general aviation airports support a vast network of essential services. The state has 482 aerial application aircraft, more than any other state in the country, and every one of them operates out of a general aviation airport. Texas also has 101 air ambulance bases, also the most of any state, moving critically ill patients from rural communities to major hospitals in minutes rather than hours. The Texas Wing of the Civil Air Patrol, with more than 3,100 volunteers and 30 aircraft, conducts roughly 90 percent of inland search and rescue missions in the continental United States.
Flight schools at airports like San Marcos and Burnet are training the pilots who will fly the next generation of aircraft. Hunters, ranchers, surveyors, and energy workers rely on these airports across a state too large to drive.
The economic impact is substantial. The Texas Department of Transportation’s Aviation Economic Impact Study found that general aviation airports support 48,089 jobs and $9.3 billion in economic output across the state. Burnet Municipal Airport alone supports 38 jobs and $5.7 million in output. San Marcos Regional supports 664 jobs and $82 million.
When commercial airports are included, the full Texas aviation system supports 778,955 jobs, $30.1 billion in payroll, and $94.3 billion in total economic output. These numbers come from surveys of airport managers, businesses, and visitors. They are not projections. They describe what is already happening, quietly, at airports most people drive past without slowing down.
Yet funding for these airports already lags behind what they need. Some proposals in Washington would privatize air traffic control, shifting resources toward the busiest commercial hubs while leaving smaller community airports behind. But Texas aviation is not just DFW and Austin-Bergstrom. It is a network of 289 airports and heliports across this state, and 210 of them are part of the national system eligible for federal funding. Decisions that treat only the biggest airports as worth protecting will hollow out everything else.
The Hill Country floods showed exactly why small airports are so vital. More than 120 people died, dozens went missing, and roads washed out across entire communities. Within hours, Burnet Municipal Airport became a command center for the response. More than 60 aircraft flew in carrying chainsaws, shovels, water, and protective gear. The nonprofit HELO ran more than 100 helicopter flights in the first days
