Officials discuss possible changes to Tyler Pounds Regional Airport

TYLER — With more people getting vaccinated everyday, more people are willing to travel. According to our news partner KETK, Tyler Pounds Regional Airport has been working on a master plan for more than two decades. Their goal is get more commercial airlines to come to the airport, but, first they hope to renovate some areas. On Wednesday, City of Tyler and airport leaders met to discuss this. Officials want to focus on fixing runway 1331, since the pavement is old and in bad condition. Experts said it also may only last another 1-5 years.

“Runway 1331 is currently it’s an aging pavement right now just like other pavement infrastructure across the city. At some point pavement needs to be rehabilitated or reconstructed,” said Michael Mallonee, with KSA Engineering. Leaders also want to turn the runway into a taxi area so crews can travel around the airport more easily. “It makes us even that much more efficient, making it a taxiway will give access to some of those areas I talked about for further development,” said Steve Thompson, Tyler Pounds Regional Airport Manager.

It will cost the airport a lot of money to make their repairs, and officials met with Tyler City Council to discuss the best way to do it. Once a decision is made, it will need to get approved by the Federal Aviation Association.