Athens and Lawrenceville Airport Control Tower to Close

Some local airports announced last week that the control towers at the airports will be closing in the next few weeks.

Athens-Ben Epps Airport's tower in Athens will cease operations on April 21st and Briscoe's tower is scheduled to close on May 5. The towers at Kennesaw's McCollum Field and the Southwest Georgia Regional Airport in Albany are also set to close on May 5th. 

The closures are in an attempt to cut $637 million from the FAA's budget. On Wednesday, the FAA released a list of closure dates for the airports.

Some airports, however, are not prepared to let these closures go unchallenged. NBC News reports that several airports have already filed suit in an attempt to get the FAA to look elsewhere for the budget cuts.

Some of those airports that have already announced they will sue are Olson's airport in Illinois, Spokane Airports in Washington state, and the operators of Florida airports in Naples, Ormond Beach and Punta Gorda. The lawsuit were filed last week with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington. Thursday last week the suits were combined into one single case. There is no indication at this time that the local airports will join in suing the FAA.  

Even with the tower at Ben Epps and Briscoe Field closing, the airports will remain open and operating.