The Grundy Economic Development Council hosted a bus tour on Thursday, starting with showing off the new facilities and discussing coming improvements to the Morris Municipal Airport.

Mayor Chris Brown spoke to a crowd of local business leaders, consultants, and educators inside a hangar at the airport, discussing how important of an asset it is to the city’s growing business.

“This airport here is about $15.2 million as an economy booster for the area,” Brown said. “It brings jobs. It brings corporate entities that want to be here, whether it’s Procter & Gamble or Costco.”

Morris Municipal Airport sees around 40,000 touchdowns and takeoffs per year, and Brown said the city expects that number to rise to 70,000 once a project to build a crosswind runway is complete.

Airport Manager Ryan Cryder said there have been many changes in recent years, especially since he’s taken over as manager. The airport now has two courtesy cars for both pilots and clients flying in and out of the airport and a fueling station. He’s working on adding a sleeping quarters to the upstairs of the airport office, which would allow people making brief stops a place to relax between flights.

He said he went into his interview with Brow unsure of whether he even wanted the job. Cryder had been self-employed his whole life, but he had a laundry list of things he wanted for the airport that he’d built up over the years, since he’d been using it for decades. Brown assured him he was making the right decision.

Cryder said many pilots prefer Morris because it’s away from the O’Hare and Midway Airports controlled airspace. That means it’s easier to fly in and out, and it’s a safer environment for pilots learning to fly.

“This is a very attractive site for people that want to move their business here,” Brown said. “We’ve had that conversation with multiple people who are interested putting something on Brisbin Road or Route 47.”

Brown said while the airport is largely used by corporate fliers and local hobby fliers, it is still a public service and it’s meant to be open to the public. One such way it’s open to the public is through a partnership with D14 Aviation and the Grundy Area Vocational Center.

D14 Aviation and the Grundy Area Vocational Center will soon have classes for students who want to learn how to fly and maintain airplanes. Their first set of classes in Kankakee had 23 students. 12 of those students have now flown a plane.

D14 owner Chris Ratliff said the courses introduce students to aviation history before moving into labs for aerodynamics and physics, and the course gives them a foundation before they transition into actually flying. The second half of the program gets students geared toward becoming a pilot and Ratliff said that, hopefully, students can get in the air.

“Doing the pilot stuff with the ground school helps it mesh together,” Ratliff said. “If they’re career focused, this is a huge leg up. They’re getting 500 hours of ground training, which our school teaches at $60 an hour. You’re talking $30,000 worth of training they’re getting through their high school class.”

Private pilot Tim Kolster said what’s nice about Morris is it has two GPS approaches now that make navigating a landing in bad weather easier. He said he’s never missed an approach in Morris. He also said Morris has some of the lowest fuel prices in the area, and it costs much less for fuel there than on the east coast.

The City of Morris and Gov. JB Pritzker broke ground on the new crosswind runway at Morris Municipal Airport back in September, a $14.7 million project.

For more information on D14 Aviation, the Kankakee Daily Journal highlighted their courses at the Kankakee Area Career Center in early October.