By SHANNON J. ALLEN The Reporter

A Delta Air Lines Boeing 717 landed at Albertville Regional Airport on Wednesday, the first of the company’s airliners to report to Aviation Service Partners for scheduled maintenance.

“It’s the first one of its kind that’s come in here, and it’s really cool,” said Mark Chestnut, director of Albertville Regional Airport. “We hope there’s a lot more coming.

“This has been an ongoing process for several months between Delta, ASP and us at the airport. They sent the airplane here yesterday, and we had 15 minutes notice it was coming.

“This is great. It’s a feather in the cap for ASP, because it gives them a lot of work to do here. They already have a great partnership with Delta out of Houston.”

Aviation Service Partners is an industry leading small business providing top-tier aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul services and rapidly deployable engineering field teams to support commercial aviation clients.

ASP has multiple locations across the United States, as well as a Mexico facility, with headquarters located at Albertville Regional Airport. Log onto aviationservicepartners.com to learn more about the company.

The Boeing 717 is a 110-seat airliner that Chestnut said makes “short-haul” flights for Delta, such as Birmingham to Atlanta.

“Delta owns the majority of them,” he said. “There were 120 something built, and Delta owns 100 or more of them. It’s one heck of a workhorse for Delta.

“This partnership with ASP and Delta, I feel like it’s going to explode and bring jobs to the area.”

Chestnut has served as Albertville Regional Airport’s director for three years. His knowledge and experience as a retired Delta Air Lines pilot was instrumental in helping the partnership between ASP and Delta take flight at Thomas J. Brumlik Field.