
Hughes Technical Center (FAATC) transferred operational control of the airport to the SJTA. A ticketing/waiting area was added in 1989 and a second-floor expansion was completed in May of 1996. The Civil Terminal Building was constructed in the early 1960s. Upon such reversion, the SJTA must agree to operate the Airport as a public airport for the useful life of the Airport facilities. The reversionary interest means that ownership of the property may revert to the SJTA if the FAA determines that it has no use of the airport purposes. government and which the FAA administers. The SJTA also acquired the City of Atlantic City's reversionary interest in approximately 4,312 acres of the Airport which the City had sold to the U.S. On September 24, 1992, under terms of the Act, the SJTA acquired the Civil Terminal Area from the City of Atlantic City consisting of approximately 84 acres in Egg Harbor Township, NJ. The SJTA is the successor to the New Jersey Expressway Authority and the Atlantic County Transportation Authority. The South Jersey Transportation Authority was created in 1991 by – and operates as an instrumentality of the State of New Jersey pursuant to – the South Jersey Transportation Act (Chapter 252 of the Laws of New Jersey of 1991, as amended and supplemented). Service by USAir, the former Allegheny Airlines, began October 29, 1978, in part of the terminal. Scheduled airline service, however, was suspended from 1971 to 1978, during which time the FAA Tech Center's engineering and developmental division occupied the terminal. The city retained 84 acres, where the civil aviation terminal and related support facilities now stand. The property was sold to the federal government for $55,000 to provide a site for aviation test facilities but with a reverter clause, giving the city the right to buy the acreage back for the same price should the federal government cease to use it. In 1958, the lease was transferred to what is now the Federal Aviation Administration. Atlantic City International Airport was originally established in 1942 as a Naval Air Station on 4,312 acres leased from Atlantic City.
