Aviation professionals are gathering in Kearney to discuss the concerns facing the state's airports.

It's part of the annual Nebraska Aviation Symposium.

Symposium organizers say the aviation industry is vital to Nebraska.

"Nebraska is a fairly large state, and especially when you get out west, the towns are few and far between, so aviation is important," Nebraska Aviation Council Chair Sandi Decker says.

The annual event gives those who work in the industry a chance to discuss the issues they're facing.

"It's very difficult to sustain an airport anymore, but we all look at it as the front door to your community," Decker says.

For mid-sized airports like those in Kearney and Grand Island, it's been a prosperous year. The Central Nebraska Regional Airport earned honors this week as the 2011 Airport of the Year.

But for those in smaller towns, it's a different story.

Decker is Airport Manager for the facility in Fairbury.

"We have a population in Fairbury of 4,500 people roughly," Decker says. "We don't even have full time personnel, because of the money problem."

But one thing all the state's airports have in common is a focus on safety and the need for proper training.

Former flight attendant Doreen Welsh says training days were the most important of her career.

She says that training kept her and the 150 other people on United Airways Flight 1549 safe during the January 2009 crash-landing in the Hudson River. Welsh shared her story with symposium attendees.

"It was a miracle, there's no doubt about that," Welsh says. "But also it took a lot of training and professionalism."

Nebraska airport officials say it's stories like Welsh's that bring them together.

"We have to stick together as a group because we're such a small group that we need each others' support," Decker says.

Decker says another issue on the minds of symposium attendees is the threat of losing a federal subsidy program that provides much needed funds for small, rural airports. A proposed bill to cut that program is currently pending.