Yeager Airport is on track to end 2010 with a 6.5 percent increase in passenger boardings, compared with the number of passengers using the Charleston airport last year, members of the airport's board of directors learned during their monthly meeting on Wednesday.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Yeager Airport is on track to end 2010 with a 6.5 percent increase in passenger boardings, compared with the number of passengers using the Charleston airport last year, members of the airport's board of directors learned during their monthly meeting on Wednesday.
"Compared with many other airports, we're doing pretty good," said Rick Atkinson, director of the Charleston airport. "We've managed to add flights and not really lose any seating capacity from the airlines."
Last year, low-cost carrier AirTran inaugurated nonstop service to Orlando, Fla., from Yeager, while American Airlines debuted nonstop flights to New York's LaGuardia International, and added service to Chicago earlier this year.
"The Gauley River whitewater season and Bridge Day will help make October a big month for us," said Atkinson, "although there's generally not a lot of business travel from Thanksgiving through the end of the year."
In other developments during Wednesday's meeting, construction committee chairman Bill Forbes announced that after five years and nearly $29 million, Yeager's runway extension project is within six weeks of completion, with concrete paving the only remaining task.
The project involved 3 million cubic yards of earthmoving, the relocation and widening of taxiways, and the addition of safety overrun areas and a collapsible concrete arresting bed that has already brought one runway-overshooting airliner to a safe stop.
The project also added 500 linear feet of pavement to the main runway area, which will reduce takeoff weight limits on long-haul commercial flights, causing fewer passengers to be "bumped" on departing nonstop flights to destinations such as Houston and Atlanta.
Improvements to the airport's passenger terminal are also substantially complete, including the construction of a canopy at the entrance of the terminal to protect passengers from the elements as they are being dropped off or picked up.
It was announced during Wednesday's meeting that KRT, the local public transit service, donated a bus to the airport for use in situations such as the July 27 emergency landing at Yeager of a United Airlines flight from Washington, D.C. A KRT bus was summoned to carry passengers from the Boeing 757's stopping point to the terminal building.
Reach Rick Steelhammer at rsteelham...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5169.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Yeager Airport is on track to end 2010 with a 6.5 percent increase in passenger boardings, compared with the number of passengers using the Charleston airport last year, members of the airport's board of directors learned during their monthly meeting on Wednesday.
"Compared with many other airports, we're doing pretty good," said Rick Atkinson, director of the Charleston airport. "We've managed to add flights and not really lose any seating capacity from the airlines."
Last year, low-cost carrier AirTran inaugurated nonstop service to Orlando, Fla., from Yeager, while American Airlines debuted nonstop flights to New York's LaGuardia International, and added service to Chicago earlier this year.
"The Gauley River whitewater season and Bridge Day will help make October a big month for us," said Atkinson, "although there's generally not a lot of business travel from Thanksgiving through the end of the year."
In other developments during Wednesday's meeting, construction committee chairman Bill Forbes announced that after five years and nearly $29 million, Yeager's runway extension project is within six weeks of completion, with concrete paving the only remaining task.
The project involved 3 million cubic yards of earthmoving, the relocation and widening of taxiways, and the addition of safety overrun areas and a collapsible concrete arresting bed that has already brought one runway-overshooting airliner to a safe stop.
The project also added 500 linear feet of pavement to the main runway area, which will reduce takeoff weight limits on long-haul commercial flights, causing fewer passengers to be "bumped" on departing nonstop flights to destinations such as Houston and Atlanta.
Improvements to the airport's passenger terminal are also substantially complete, including the construction of a canopy at the entrance of the terminal to protect passengers from the elements as they are being dropped off or picked up.
It was announced during Wednesday's meeting that KRT, the local public transit service, donated a bus to the airport for use in situations such as the July 27 emergency landing at Yeager of a United Airlines flight from Washington, D.C. A KRT bus was summoned to carry passengers from the Boeing 757's stopping point to the terminal building.
Reach Rick Steelhammer at rsteelham...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5169.
