KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — McGhee Tyson Airport is seeing increasingly more travelers each year. In 2023, it reported 2,835,773 total travelers going through the airport. It said it was a record number of travelers, up from 2,495,737 in 2022. Because of that, the airport said it needs more flights and more space.
"Over the last five to eight years, we've seen the number of people flying in to experience our region significantly increase," said Patrick Wilson the President of the Knoxville Airport Authority.
He said within the next two years, the airport expects to see around 3.5 million passengers annually.
"We've quickly exceeded the capacity of this building," Wilson said.
The airport is in the early stages of building a new parking garage. The garage will be six stories and add about 3,500 new parking spaces. Wilson said they are also looking at adding new gates.
"Somewhere around 2029, 2030, we hope to be able to expand and have additional gates to bring in even more air service," he said.
Wilson said a growing airport is attractive to new airlines.
"The more flights we have coming in from other airlines, the more competitive all the airlines get," said Wilson.
There is still one major airline missing in Knoxville — Southwest Airlines. Wilson said the airport authority has regular recruiting conversations with the airline. He said Southwest could come to Knoxville one day.
"They certainly indicated they have an interest in serving us in the future," Wilson said. "We would expect to see them here someday, just as their capacity would allow them to bring their service to market."
McGhee Tyson Airport offers incentives to reduce the startup costs for new airlines. The president said that includes offering marketing money, and waiving landing fees and terminal rents for airlines for a period of time.
In February, McGhee Tyson leaders announced Avelo Airlines would offer nonstop flights from East Tennessee to New Haven, Connecticut.
Right now, there are 25 nonstop destinations out of McGhee Tyson Airport, but Wilson said that number is expected to grow.
"A lot of air service that's coming on in May and June, that'll bring us up to that 30 direct destinations," Wilson said. "We are constantly out talking to our existing airlines and new airlines about increasing air service to Knoxville."
The airport authority said a lot of factors play into making Knoxville attractive to new airlines.
"Our role as the airport in trying to represent the community is to make sure that we highlight the things for that particular airline that we think would be important that they need to know about whether it be tourism, corporate travel, about population about our growth trends at the airport," said Wilson.