St. George, UT - The new St. George airport has been open for business
for a little more than a year now, and even though some people still
drive to the site of the old airport, and find out it's closed, the new
airport has been a success.
In between flights at the new St.
George airport, it's about as empty as the old airport, but that could
soon change, as more commercial flights could be taking off and landing
there.
Rich Stehmeier, manager of the airport said, "The numbers, as far as the financial numbers, we're actually on a nice upswing."
Five flights a day currently go to Salt Lake City, and one goes to Los Angeles.
Soon,
direct flights to Denver, Phoenix, and even San Francisco could fly out
of St. George. Not only is there interest in going to those cities,
Stehmeier said, but there is interest from them.
"Those kind of
people are starting to look at us because of our proximity to Zion
National Park, Bryce, Grand Canyon, all these places that people come
from all over the world to come here," Stehmeier said.
Last year, 137,000 passengers used the St. George airport, the highest since the economy crashed four years ago.
Scott
Hirschi, director of Washington County's Economic Development team,
said businesses looking to move to the area like the new airport. Family
Dollar is building a distribution center in the city, 400 new jobs and
Hirschi remembers the executives talking about the airport.
"It's
just opened up all sorts of new economic opportunities," he said. "It's
the first thing many of those businesses see as they come to our
community and land there."
But for some locals, it's still
taking a little while to get used to. A few still go to the old airport,
only to find out it's not there anymore.
"People would call up
and say, ‘Hey, my plane leaves in 45 minutes, and I just pulled up to
the terminal, and there's no one here,'" Stehmeier said.
Some
private pilots have landed at the old airport, even with big X's on the
runway, but Stehmeier felt last month's air show with the Blue Angels
helped let people know where they are now.
"The number of calls
we take on a daily basis about ‘How do I get to the airport?' has
dropped to almost nothing lately," he said.
It just takes time.
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