The Gulf Shores Airport Authority has broken ground on what officials are calling the first new air traffic control tower built in the United States in more than a decade, a project funded by a $6.1 million federal grant announced earlier this year.
During a ceremony Friday, the authority also confirmed plans for a passenger terminal at Jack Edwards National Airport and said it has been in talks with Elite Airways, a Portland, Maine-based carrier, about launching select regional passenger service to Gulf Shores at an undetermined future date.
Jack Edwards is the second-busiest airport in Alabama behind Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International. Airport Manager Scott Fuller said the facility has “been trying to deal with the air traffic issue here for 15 years.” For more than a decade, the Federal Aviation Administration enforced a moratorium on applications for new contract towers — a pause Fuller said was lifted in 2018 with help from local congressional efforts.
Fuller credited U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby with securing a new five-year FAA funding bill that included a provision for new towers, “forcing the FAA back into the tower business” after four years of continuing resolutions. Working with the FAA, the authority developed a streamlined application process and partnered with the city of Gulf Shores to assemble an 11-acre site on the south side of the airport for the tower.
Safety, then service
Gulf Shores Mayor Pro Tem Phillip Harris said the tower will improve safety and communication at an airport where “pilots have to individually manage their way in and out today.” He noted it will also help manage flyovers, touch-and-go training flights and traffic effects on surrounding communities, while opening the door to economic development and commercial air service.
Because the FAA is covering 100 percent of tower construction, the authority was able to redirect its $600,000 local match toward designing and building the new passenger terminal. It has also received a letter of intent from Elite Airways to eventually offer passenger service.
Elite Airways CEO John Pearsall said the carrier operates charter and scheduled routes primarily along the East Coast and specializes in point-to-point service to unique destinations. “We are always looking for special projects and unique destinations and we think this is a very special destination,” Pearsall said, adding that his team is working with Fuller on possible destinations.