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AirportImprovement.com      September 2026
OPERATIONS 
MKG  
Once again, he points to the math. MKG logs roughly 30,000 
takeoffs and landings a year, and about 29,000 of them are 
general aviation operations. No matter how FAA classifies 
the airport, Efting says it’s actually a general aviation field 
that happens to host a couple commercial flights a day. He 
acknowledges that MKG’s value for most Muskegon County 
residents is airline service—their connection to somewhere else. 
“But the reality of it is that 99% of the usage of the airport is that 
last 1%,” he explains. “That’s the general aviation community.”
Airport stats and local economic reports back him up. Of 
the 101,487 passengers and aviators who used the airport last 
year, only about 15% travel on scheduled commercial flights; 
the other 85% are transient or based general aviation customers 
such as charter passengers and private pilots. And those 
customers tend to spend. General aviation users often generate 
a disproportionately higher local economic impact through fuel 
purchases, maintenance, lodging and dining than their headcount 
alone would suggest.
Growth in general aviation traffic is comparatively predictable, 
he adds. His plan to attract more of that traffic is to be 
competitive on fuel prices and offer hangar space. While every 
airport within 50 miles has a waiting list for hangars, MKG still has 
some space available. And it’s building a new self-serve fuel farm 
funded by the county. This will allow Efting to market the airport 
as a sensible stop on the Lake Michigan shoreline for aircraft 
making cross-country flights. Fuel is, after all, the single largest 
revenue source at most general aviation airports. 
Signs of momentum are visible elsewhere, too. Hangar 
occupancy is near capacity. And the airport recently added 
Enterprise to its rental car lineup, alongside Budget and Avis. 
For the first time in eight years MKG has multiple rental company 
options for passengers. On the operations side, the airport 
secured a zero-emission vehicle grant of $96,000 to purchase 
two electric Ford Lightning pickups for airfield maintenance.
Back to a (Better) Baseline
Ask Efting to sum up the progress made since his arrival in 2022, 
and he tends to undersell it. 
“We’ve been working hard the last three years to just get back 
to a solid baseline,” he says. Deferred facility maintenance had 
piled up since the 2008 market crash, and a lot of the effort 
has been directed at meeting standards customers reasonably 
expect: a roof that doesn’t leak, post-security restrooms, outlets 
to charge their phones, and a good place to get a bite to eat. 
Daktronics LED video display technology provides a reliable canvas for airports that focus on 
the traveler. With the effective use of indoor and outdoor installations, airports can do more 
than move travelers from point A to point B.
DIGITAL LED VIDEO DISPLAYS
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SEE THE DENVER INTERNATIONAL 
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OPTIMIZE OPERATIONS
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