Page Tools:
Airport Eliminate Bumpy Rides for Pilots
Victoria Regional Airport serves the skies throughout southeast Texas, but the long-standing airfield made recent news on the ground.
In September 2009, the Victoria County Commissioners Court voted to improve the concrete apron outside 16 hangar units.
“We did improvements to the pavement, the ramp area and taxiways in 2009, and this was an extension of that,” says Faye Turner, interim airport manager.
Brannan Paving Company of Victoria was awarded the concrete-apron contract of $295,871, which was funded through a Federal Aviation Administration grant program. Up until the repaving, private airplane owners had to endure a very bumpy ride between the runway and the airport’s storage hangars.
The repaving project came at a good time because the airport has been getting busier in recent years. It now has four runways and one helipad, and Continental Airlines offers connection flights to and from Victoria Regional four times from Sunday to Friday as well as twice on Saturday.
Also on the airport grounds is Sky Restaurant, which offers steaks, chicken and pasta dishes. However, the restaurant has become almost legendary for its seafood offerings of jumbo gulf shrimp, fresh oysters, sea scallops, king crab legs, stone crab claws, crawfish, red snapper, tilapia, catfish, flounder and yellowfin tuna.
Victoria Regional Airport is centrally located between the cities of Houston, San Antonio and Corpus Christi, and it offers free parking and on-site rental car service from Avis and Enterprise. It also has a small terminal that caters to private pilots, with amenities such as a conference room, flight planning room, lounge, pilot supplies and even a snooze room.
Victoria Regional Airport began its history in 1941 as Victoria Field and then in 1942 became Foster Air Force Base, an advanced flying school for World War II fighter pilots. The base ultimately closed and in 1976 the property was renamed Victoria Regional Airport.
Story by Kevin Litwin
