Florence airport expansion will be felt throughout the Pee Dee

Anyone looking for some good local news need only look as far as Florence Regional Airport.
The airport is coming off its most successful year yet, having seen a record number of enplanements in 2008. And just last month, more than 5,000 people boarded planes at the airport, compared with about 3,500 in March 2008.
The Pee Dee Regional Airport Commission has decided to move forward with plans to expand the airport and capitalize on that momentum. The airport just completed a three-month, $300,000 drainage improvement project in late March.
The expansion will begin at the waiting area for passengers and extend into the flight landing area.
“Instead of having two gates, we are going to wind up with four gates, and each gate is going to have 50 seats, instead of the 42 for the whole departure lounge,” executive director Hartsell Rogers said.
The airport has room to add as many as 12 gates, if they can be supported by air travelers and service providers. Six US Airways flights and two Delta flights are available through the airport, while another Delta flight will be added May 1.
With 12 gates, Florence Regional Airport would be as large as Myrtle Beach International Airport is planned to be.
Half the cost of the current expansion project, which has an estimated $10 million price tag, is eligible to be paid for using Federal Aviation Administration grants. The rest of the money might have to come from another source, though the airlines will pay for a part of the balance in their rental bills. Regional airport officials have contacted U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina about obtaining funds to finish the project and are waiting to hear back from his office.
That’s a great deal of progress for a facility that began as a small city airfield in 1928.
And it’s a lot of hard work by the airport staff — many of whom have been employed there for decades — as well as the nine volunteer members of the Pee Dee Regional Airport Commission, which was established 11 years ago.
Last year, the North Eastern Strategic Alliance, a regional economic development organization that counts Chesterfield, Darlington, Dillon, Florence, Marion, Marlboro and Williamsburg counties among its members, conducted a study to determine whether an international airport serving the Pee Dee and Grand Strand was needed under moderate- or high-growth scenarios. The study area extended into North Carolina and included three existing commercial airports — one of them being Florence Regional Airport.
That study, however, had little impact on Florence Regional Airport or its planned improvements. NESA’s airport study committee disbanded in December after presenting its findings to Horry County Council, which in November approved a terminal expansion at the Myrtle Beach airport. NESA’s study is the type of long-range vision this region should have for its airport needs and won’t affect this airport’s shorter-term plans to make traveling more convenient, Rogers said.
The impact of the Florence Regional Airport improvements will be felt throughout the Pee Dee, especially as it is used as an economic development tool for the entire region. In the short term, Roger said he expects the two-year expansion project will create 100 jobs. In the long term, any industry seeking to locate in the Pee Dee or its surrounding communities will require access to a commercial airport as well as to major interstates.
“If they ever talked about a shovel-ready project, we got one,” Rogers said. “Because the shovel is already out there. We just need to keep it going.”