Angela Ladner of Jackson flies in and out of the Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport as often as two to three times each month about nine months of the year.
“In recent months when I’ve traveled, I kept expecting the escalators to work,” she said, “but in 2024 that was hardly the case.
“It’s not pleasant to have to encounter something that should be working but isn’t especially when you’re a weary traveler. It gives travelers a bad image of the airport and the state as a whole.”
The escalators and elevators in the main concourse at the Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport date to when the airport was new.
That was 60 years ago, five years before Ladner was born.
“They’re beyond what the manufacturer would consider their useful life,” said Rosa Beckett, chief executive officer of the Jackson Municipal Airport Authority.
Travelers, like Ladner, often discover the escalators need maintenance, despite the airport authority’s best effort to keep them functioning.
“We have Schindler (Elevators) come out and fix them, and they may run for a week or two,” she said. “We’ve put up signs to let people know about the elevators. They have to look off to the side to find them.”
The breakdowns should be a thing of the past after new escalators and several new elevators are installed later this year.
“We will be replacing all four escalators in the terminal building and five of the seven elevators in the terminal building,” Beckett said. “We expect to have equipment on site to begin installation in late June or early July.”
The cost to replace the four escalators and five elevators is $5.3 million.
Helping foot the bill is $8 million from the U.S. Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Airport Terminals Program, which pro-
vides competitive grants for airport terminal development projects that address the aging infrastructure of the nation’s airports.
The installation of the escalators and elevators will be phased in to ensure vertical access is always available and to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, Beckett said. “We won’t take out all four escalators but take out one at a time,” she said.
The bid and contractor selection processes have been completed and so has the construction design process, she said. Paul Jackson & Son will handle the work.
Airports throughout the country in need of equipment updates competed for the same grant from the Federal Aviation Administration that the Jackson-Wiley Medgar Evers International Airport received and now they are vying for the same manufacturers and contractors to fulfill their equipment and installation needs, Beckett said.
Miami International Airport is replacing more than 100 escalators compared to the four being replaced at Jackson-Wiley Medgar Evers International Airport, she said.
“There is a lot of the same work going on,” she said. “There are only so many manufacturers and companies doing the work.”
Also set to be replaced this year are the chillers and air handler, which are part of the HVAC system, at the terminal, Beckett said. The cost of that work is $9.5 million, some of which is being supplied by the grant the airport authority received with the rest from the authority funds.
Johnson Controls is expected to begin installing the new chillers in late May and early June.
“They’ll bring in a temporary unit as they pull out the permanent unit and install it,” Beckett said. “We’ll work off a temporary unit as construction is going on.”
The air handling unit, boiler system and control panels for the HVAC system in the terminal also need to be replaced and that’s estimated to cost $6.7 million, she said. The airport authority hopes to secure additional funding for that need, she said.
The airport authority requested $16.2 million from the Federal Aviation Administration and received $8 million, which it announced in February 2024. That forced the airport authority to prioritizing projects, Beckett said.
The outbound and inbound baggage belt equipment is dated and needs to be replaced but the airport authority did not receive enough funding to do that, she said. The airport authority also wanted to replace the passenger boarding bridge at Gate 4 that American Airlines uses but did not receive enough funding to do that, she said.
The airport authority plans to apply for additional funding should it come available in the spring, she said.
Also under way is a $47 million project to maintain the airport’s taxiways, the pathways that planes use as they come off the runway. The work should wrap up by the end of the year, she said.
The Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport is one of the busiest in Mississippi, providing service to more than 1.2 million passengers per year.
