Just a fly-by

A crowd turned out to celebrate the season during the annual Knoxville Metropolitan Airport Authority holiday party at the Hilton. Becky Huckaby, director of public relations for the airport, said the event is something the airport likes to do each year for the community and the tenants on airport property.

“It’s a ‘thank-you’ for service, and we like to tell the tenants we appreciate them serving our community,” she said. “It’s a get-together to celebrate the holidays.”

The event always follows the airport’s monthly board meeting where they approve their final report for the year. Huckaby said air traffic at the airport was off slightly at the beginning of the year but rebounded as the year went on.

“We do comparisons to traffic from December of last year to this year. The first part of the year we were down, but we were starting to make a comeback, and we hope to continue to make a comeback into the first part of 2010,” Huckaby said.

Huckaby said the airport is a very special place to be during the holidays. “You have family reunions with people who have not seen each other in a year or longer. You have a lot of families excited to start the holidays,” she said. “We have a caroling program with area schools where they sing during the first couple weeks of December for the passengers. You can’t believe how many people enjoy that. It’s very unique place to be during the holidays.”