(a) Any two or more municipalities, any two or more contiguous counties, or any county or two or more contiguous counties and one or more municipalities located therein or partly therein, of this state, are hereby authorized to create and establish one or more authorities for the purpose of acquiring, establishing, constructing, equipping, improving, financing, maintaining, and operating a regional airport or international airport and ancillary airports, as the case may be, for the use of aircraft: Provided, That no such municipality or county shall participate in such authority unless and until the governing body or county court so provides.

(b) As used in this article, the following terms have the following meanings:

(1) “Abandoned aircraft” means either:

(A) An aircraft left in a wrecked, inoperative, or partially dismantled condition on an airport for 45 consecutive calendar days and without a contractual agreement in force between the owner or operator of the aircraft and the airport authority for use of the airport premises; or

(B) An aircraft that has remained in an idle state on an airport for 45 consecutive calendar days without a contractual agreement between the owner or operator of the aircraft and the airport authority for use of the airport premises;

(2) “Aircraft” has the meaning provided in § 29-2A-1 of this code;

(3) “Airport” means any airport, heliport, helistop, vertiport, gliderport, seaplane base, ultralight flightpark, manned balloon launching facility, or other aircraft landing or takeoff area operated by an airport operator as that term is defined in §8-29B-2(3);

(4) “Ancillary airport” means any airport, heliport, helistop, vertiport, gliderport, seaplane base, ultralight flightpark, manned balloon launching facility, or other aircraft landing or takeoff area that is owned and operated or operated by agreement by another authority as defined in § 8-29-1 of this code;

(5) “Authority” means a regional airport authority created pursuant to the provisions of this article;

(6) “Contiguous counties” means two or more counties which constitute a compact territorial unit within an unbroken boundary wherein one county touches at least one other county but does not require that each county touch all of the other counties so combining; and

(7) “Derelict aircraft” means any aircraft that is not in a flyable condition, does not have a current certificate of air worthiness issued by the federal aviation administration, and whose owner cannot produce satisfactory written documentation from a licensed third-party aircraft mechanic evidencing that they have been hired to actively and fully repair the aircraft to both an airworthy and properly registered condition within six calendar months from the date notice is given to the owner.