Tunica Municipal Airport is a public use airport located one nautical mile (2 km) east of the central business district of Tunica, in Tunica County, Mississippi, United States. It is owned by the Tunica County Airport Commission. Also known as Tunica Airport, it should not be confused with the 10 acre privately owned, public use Tunica Airport located south of the center of town, which has been recently changed to Ralph M Sharpe Airport. As per Federal Aviation Administration records, the airport had 59,795 passenger boardings (enplanements) in calendar year 2008, 64,238 enplanements in 2009, and 65,907 in 2010. It has not had scheduled commercial airline passenger service since 2011. This airport is included in the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015, which categorized it as a general aviation facility. Although most U.S. airports use the same three-letter location identifier for the FAA and IATA, Tunica Municipal Airport is assigned UTA by the FAA and UTM by the IATA (which assigned UTA to Mutare Airport in Mutare, Zimbabwe). History Development and improvement of the facility, located in the southern portion of the Memphis Metropolitan Area, has increased dramatically since the 1990s. Tunica Municipal is considered as one of the multiple beneficiaries of sales tax revenue generated by the addition of casinos to the county, following approval by the Mississippi Legislature to introduce gaming houses. The growth of the Tunica Resorts region into the third largest gaming destination behind Las Vegas, Nevada and Atlantic City, New Jersey, aided efforts to expand air service beyond charter flights. The airport opened in 2003 with a 5,500-foot runway. A $5.6 million project in 2004 extended the runway length to 7,000 feet, long enough to accommodate larger aircraft. In 2005, Tunica received its Part 139 certification to allow large jets from the Federal Aviation Administration. The first large jet, a 125-passenger Boeing 737 operated by Gold Transportation for Harrah's Entertainment, landed in Tunica in November 2005. Prior to this flight, the largest flight that had landed in Tunica had 30 passengers. In May 2006, Boston-Maine Airways operating as Pan Am Clipper Connection, began Tunica's first scheduled service with three Boeing 727 flights per week from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. That service ended in 2006 when the airline lost its routes from Atlanta. Casino charters continue to fly into Tunica growing passenger traffic despite the loss of the Clipper Connection service. In 2007, the