The Madison Airport-Bruce Campbell Field provides a convenient location for companies doing business in the area to land and take off.
Is the airport, which is composed of 25 acres that are off Old Canton Road, suitable for the aircraft that companies fly?
“Yes, it is sufficient,” said Joey Deason, executive director of the Madison County Economic Development Authority.
“We do deal with private companies that have corporate jets and companies owned by families that have them, too. Business consultants land there as well. They can land on the tarmac at the Madison Airport.”
Deason keeps an eye on the aircraft at Madison Airport in an effort to keep up with what’s happening.
“We go and see what jets are out there,” he said. “We get the tail numbers and see if a company flew in that we don’t know.”
In what is the biggest economic development project under way in the state, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has data centers under construction in Ridgeland and near Canton at the Mega Site.
The Madison Airport hasn’t seen any of those executives come through and does not expect to. “The AWS employees fly commercial from the CEO down,” Deason said.
Guy Bowering, a city of Madison alderman in his fourth term, serves as the airport manager. He is a liaison to Madison Air, which as the fixed base operator of the airport provides all services such as fuel and maintenance for the air traffic that uses the field, including the privately owned planes housed there.
Bowering, who has worked as a commercial pilot, said the amount of air activity at the airport is good and expected to be even better in the coming years. “We believe it will pick up with the advent of a new administration,” he said, because of a promise to ease some regulations and lower the cost of fuel.
The Madison Airport is open seven days a week and sees about 50 takeoffs and landings each day, he said. That amounts to about 18,250 takeoffs and landings annually.
“Lots of business travel comes into that airport,” Bowering said. “I drove by and saw three corporate jets, two King Airs and some smaller planes next to the terminal.”
The airport has a flight school, Madison Flyers, which offers a private pilot certificate, the first step for pilots, and more, he said.
The airport, which dates to World War II, opened in March 1941 as a training base for U.S. Army Air Corps flying cadets under contract to the Mississippi Institute of Aeronautics.
“The three large hangars on the north side of the airport were for that purpose,” Bowering said. “There used to be barracks there but they were moved on the west side of Old Canton Road. Some of them are still there.”
The airfield was deactivated on June 30, 1945, with the drawdown of the army’s pilot training program. It was declared surplus and turned over to the Army Corps of Engineers on Sept. 30, 1945 and was eventually discharged to the War Assets Administration and became a civil airport.
The airport property was deeded to Madison in 1948 with the stipulation that it be used for public aviation. In 1953, the Madison City Council renamed the field in honor of Bruce Campbell of Jackson in recognition of his contributions to aviation in Mississippi; he was killed in an aircraft accident in the line of duty with the Civil Aeronautics Administration.
