COU closure boosts business at Jefferson City Memorial Airport

JEFFERSON CITY — The temporary closure of Columbia Regional Airport made things busier Friday at Jefferson City Memorial Airport. Jets and planes that normally landed in Columbia landed in the Capital City.

Jefferson City Memorial Airport managers hosted small planes and jets that usually hung out at the Columbia Regional Airport. Airport officials diverted several larger jets to Jefferson City that wanted to land in Columbia. For example, a jet brought the LSU Tiger men’s baseball team to Jefferson City for a game against the Missouri Tigers instead of landing in Columbia. Additional flights in Jefferson City brought additional money.

Operations Division Director Britt Smith said, “We believe we are selling some more fuel. We do collect fuel flowage fees so there might be an uptick in that a little bit. As a whole, I don’t know if we’ve seen enough that you will be able to see it, if you were to graph it out.”

Jefferson City Memorial Airport closed 2 years ago while construction crews built a new main runway. During that time, Jefferson City aircraft moved to Columbia. Jefferson City airport officials said they were returning the favor.

Smith said, “We’re within our capacity with the extra aircraft that we’ve seen. We’re happy to help in any way we can.”

The Jefferson City Memorial Airport does not offer any commercial airline service, but it does have a lot of commuter aircraft and corporate jets. Jefferson City’s airport doesn’t have landing fees.