More tax revenue. Business developments. Quick and convenient travel.

Those are benefits the Hanover County Municipal Airport brings to the region, Virginia Aviation Department officials say.

And the airport likely will have an even stronger economic impact on the region with new hangars scheduled to be built by early 2008.

Joel Truog, operations manager and chief flight instructor at the airport, said he hopes to increase the number of planes based there (currently about 130) to 150 in January. The additional hangars also will be able to hold much larger planes.

Hanover is following a growing trend in Virginia of investing more money in airports, said Cherry Evans, a spokeswoman for the state aviation department.

Though Virginia experienced a major decline in air travel immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, air traffic is increasing -- and officials are starting to appreciate the positive effect airports have on business development, Evans said.

When a business is considering where it wants to be located, "air-transportation access is often a deciding factor," according to the aviation department. "The airport will often be the first and last impression a CEO [or] CFO has of a locality.

"The locality benefits by collection of aircraft property tax, fuel sales, hangar rents and the overall benefit of providing an economic [attraction]."

In a 2004 study by the aviation department, the Hanover airport had an economic impact on the region of $9.97 million annually.

In total, Virginia's 66 public-use airports had a $10.7 billion annual economic impact. But Evans said a study the department now is conducting likely will conclude significantly higher figures.

"I really believe that if it hadn't been there, that [the Hanover] industrial park wouldn't have grown the way that it has, and that whole area wouldn't have developed the way it did," said Mike Grim, one of the first pilots to fly at the airport, which opened in 1971.

The Hanover airport, a fixed-base operation by Heart of Virginia Aviation, is on about 200 acres between the Atlee and Lewistown road interchanges east of Interstate 95.

The airport is intended primarily for corporate travel. However, some of the planes are owned by recreational pilots, and others are used for flight lessons.