Dear Editor,

The 8/2 article about a complaint to the City Council regarding the Thomasville Regional Airport, while possibly accurate as to what the complain was about — perceived condition of furniture and personnel’s use thereof — portrayed our airport more poorly than she deserved.

In 1942, construction of the Thomasville Army Air Base was completed and along with Finney General Hospital was Thomasville’s support for the nation’s WWII effort (see Thomasville Army Air Base by Will Watt on YouTube); thus she has a history of which she can be proud. And in 1958 city council members made the wise decision to move the then Thomasville Campbell Street airport operation to the old Army Air Base (the current Regional Airport location) where, around 12 years ago, council members approved construction of a fine new terminal.

So, some terminal building furniture has now been in use for 12 years. No wonder it might no longer look new; and as for sweaty people sitting on it, in Thomasville in summertime, most folks do some sweating and transient pilots and passengers of non-air-conditioned aircraft sweat just as much as the line crews attending them on the 115-degree hot concrete ramp. (Many, if not all, of the passengers coming and going in the larger jets do not even enter the terminal building, preferring to deplane or enplane directly from their vehicles.)

Most of us who regularly spend time at the airport seem quite satisfied with it and would be happy to give anyone who would like to see it for themselves a tour.

Besides the mentioned terminal building, Thomasville’s airport features a flight training operation, a museum of memorabilia featuring old airplane engines dating back to WWI, an aircraft repair station, rental hangars that can accommodate the smallest airplanes to some of the larger jet aircraft and is the site of a very popular fly-in that is held each October and is open to the public. And, if you have flown as pilots into much of the United States as some of us have, you would have to day that for sheer friendliness and a desire to please our Thomasville Regional Airport and its staff deserve recognition as being one of the best.

Jack Pope

Thomasville