"No Possible Way" Briscoe Would Be Profitable Without Commercial Service, Investor Says

By Jim Burress

Atlanta, GA – Propeller Investments CEO Brett Smith says he's always thought the future success of Briscoe Field depends on converting it into a secondary, commercial airport for metro Atlanta.

But without commercialization, there's no incentive in just privatizing it, he said.

"There's just not enough economic activity going in and out of Briscoe that it could ever make any money," Smith told WABE. "If they decide not to allow commercial service, then we would strongly recommend them to do nothing."

Smith's comments come one day after the Gwinnett County Commission voted to scrap three proposals for privatizing, and possibly commercializing, Briscoe Field.

Members instead voted to reopen the proposal process.

Gwinnett County 2nd District commissioner Lynette Howard said the move was necessary, because privatization and commercialization have wrongly become synonymous.

She said the commission hopes to change that.

"What we've done is de-tangled the whole thing and we've separated it out as two different issues," she said.

A citizen advisory board will now study whether turning Briscoe over to a private operator makes economic sense. Commercialization remains an option, Howard says.

So far, the polarizing question has cost Gwinnett taxpayers $190,000.