Golden Triangle's economic engine

COLUMBUS, Miss. – Columbus Air Force Base brought in more than a quarter of a billion dollars to the Golden Triangle region’s economy in the last fiscal year - $315M. The figure is up $44M from FY 2017, an AF official told the Base Community Council. CAFB’s FY-18 Economic Impact Report shows that the training base is the Golden Triangle’s economic engine that can. “Columbus Air Force Base is an integral part of the community and it’s great that we can show a 16 percent growth since last year” and a $315M economic impact for the region, Wing Commander, Col. Samantha Weeks told the council. Since 2013, growth has climbed by 30 percent. “It is the people coming into the community and what we spend when we live off base, when we shop for food off base, or shop for the other life essentials that you need.” Weeks said part of the growth is from an increase in jobs tied to CAFB. The base’s aircraft maintenance contracts gave been “very large over the last two years,” she stated. There also have been construction projects on two of CAFB’s three runways and that “definitely has a significant impact on the economy in the region.” The nationwide shortage of AF pilots is not hurting CAFB, she exclaimed. “Our mission as a flying training wing is to … create pilots (and basically) molding something out of nothing to make a military aviator,” she said. Weeks also indicated that the base will be seeing an increase in its mission over the next few years, to meet that shortage and increase production of pilots. (Source: WCBI 06/19/19)