Chattanooga Airport sees higher numbers of military aircraft

Jun. 19—Military aircraft are landing at Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport in soaring numbers so far this year as training and other general aviation activities climb while the coronavirus ebbs.

A lot of military training was put off last year due to the pandemic, said Terry Hart, the airport's chief executive.

Through May, there are 4,000 more arrivals and take-offs at the airport compared to the same period last year and much of that is military related, he said.

"There's a lot of training that goes on with the military," Hart said.

One the larger and more noticeable aircraft is the Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules, which is a four-engine turboprop transport plane.

Stephanie Sonnenfeld Stinn, a Lockheed Martin Aeronautics spokeswoman, said the company flies the so-called Super Hercs out of its production plant in Marietta, Georgia, about two hours from Chattanooga, to conduct test flights before delivery to the customer.

"Many of our test flights go up into North Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee," she said. "Our team performs a number of test flights prior to delivery."

Hart said that military activity was common before the pandemic. As a public airport that receives federal funding, it's "open to anybody and everybody, including the military," he said.

"There's all kinds of different aircraft that come here," Hart said, though the Super Hercs are one of the largest aircraft.

He recalled that when a president visits Chattanooga and flies into the airport, the nation's chief executive has planes which transport vehicles used in the motorcade.

Some of the military aircraft simply do "touch and goes" on the runway in which they never stop at the airport, Hart said. Other aircraft will stay over and fill up on fuel, which helps the airport's bottom line, he said.

"That's a plus for us," the airport CEO said.

On the commercial airline side at the airport, Hart said passenger boardings are sharply improving but he expects it will take until well into 2022 for traffic to come back to pre-pandemic levels.

Airlines are offering more seats on aircraft into the summer, he said. Also, more businesses are relaxing travel restrictions which had been put on employees amid the pandemic.

Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @MikePareTFP.