Chattanooga Airport’s lack of nonstop flights to other U.S. cities is seen as “kind of a problem” as officials try to woo headquarters and other jobs, the state’s top economic developer said Thursday.
“We believe if the airport gets more direct flights to major cities across the U.S., that will change a lot of what could happen,” Stuart McWhorter, commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development, said in Chattanooga.
McWhorter told the Chattanooga Rotary Club the city sits between busy Nashville International Airport and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, and he cited the difficulty of trying to reach each by car to fly.
When he’s recruiting business people, he said he tells them to see Chattanooga, and if their company would put in a headquarters or major operation, “you’ll be the great community hero.”