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Airport Commission has one open seat and a second opening in October. We will be going to council later this month to get those seats appointed and are hopeful to have a full commission for our next meeting. 

Council member Harris was unavailable for this meeting and did not provide any updates. 

Enplanement numbers are starting to increase once more. Last year, at this time, the air carriers were having scheduling and staffing problems and had begun to reduce the number of flights. We will be seeing a greater increase in the coming months as America Airlines is increasing their number of daily flights to both Phoenix and Dallas-Fort Worth along with the new seasonal, weekly flight to LAX.

June and July had a major increase, the largest increase was in private or private charter aircraft on the ramp. Numbers normalized in August but expect another increase in September as it becomes friendlier to fly in terms of density altitude.

We finally have some comparisons to present to the commission, July unfortunately, is hard to compare as we only began collecting revenue about halfway through the month in 2023. But we can see August is still at roughly the same amount, which matches closely to our enplanements. We will be discussing rates in the near future as part of a larger discussion on airport revenue.

Wiseman Aviation was unavailble for the meeting and did not provide any updates.

All of our CARES funding was spent! Throughout the last 4 years we identified key projects that met the grant requirements as well as using a large amount of the funding towards our operational expenses at the airport. Projects completed ranged from indoor upgrades to the terminal building, including vestibule door replacement and upgrades to our wayfinding signs, to outdoor items such as re-striping on the airfield and repairs to our hangars. One of our larger projects was our Fire Sprinkler Replacement Projects which is the first nitrogen-based system in any City facility. Completing these projects has helped us identify other items that need attention and as we move into the next budget cycle, we can hopefully start to tackle some of these one at a time.   

Currently, we are working on big upgrades to our café space; the airport went out to bid twice on the space but unfortunately was not able to move forward with any of the bids. The hours of operations were a large concern for anyone operating in that space. Due to this, we have shifted gears and will be working with the CBV on turning that space into a visitor center with a storefront and a micro-market that will be available during all operational hours.

We are continuing our work on the Snow Removal Equipment Building (SREB) which will sit between the ARFF Station and Tower will be approximately 25, 000 square feet. It will have a maintenance bay for our equipment as well as house all the snow removal equipment which is currently stored in various areas around the airport.
 

Communications Manager, Claire Harper, is out at a conference this week, we will be bringing some updates on air service attraction next month. Claire has been working hard on putting together advertising for our new LAX route. We are currently running those advertisements both in local publications along with Mountain Lion buses, and we are working with our partners at American Airlines to make sure that that route is successful. Right now that flight is scheduled to be seasonal from October through March on Saturdays, but the more successful we can make it, the more likely we are to see it back.
 

Director of the CVB, Trace Ward, presented on the BBB Tax Renewal. The BBB is a 2% tax that is paid at every hotel/motel, campground, short-term rentals, and restaurant/bar in this city. Funds collected are currently allocated between P.R.O.S.E. 33%, tourism & visitor services 30%, Beautification 20%; Economic Development 9.5% and Arts and Science 7.55%. In an effort to approve the BBB tax renewal an info series was created that helps the public learn about the benefits of the BBB and you can find more information at bbbrenewalflagstaff.com.

The BBB is generally funded by visitors to the city and this funding goes towards a variety of programs including the building and maintenance of city parks; city events including the 4^th of July and New Year’s Eve programming, messaging, and decorations; economic growth for local businesses; efforts in natural environment conservation; and education of the community’s culture and heritage. On average, the BBB saves the local citizens an approximate $1,300 every year as the program supplements the local tax base.
 

The airport recently held our mandatory full scale emergency response exercise. These exercises are required every three years for commercial service airports as part of FAA certification process. This particular one was the largest exercise that we're aware of in history of the Flagstaff Airport thanks to the CARES funding we received. We had 26 different participating organizations, including various fire departments, Northern Arizona Healthcare and Guardian Air Rescue, the Department of Public Safety and various non-governmental organizations, like Mountain Lion and the Southern Baptist Convention which practice mobilizing some of their disaster relief resources.

This exercise simulated an engine fire with at least 40 passengers being victims of the incident. The goal was to create a safe evacuation zone for the passengers and simulate the responses of the aid agencies that would respond to a call of this nature and allow us to experience the response in real time. This is the first time we've actually gone all the way through taking some passengers to the hospital to simulate how the hospital would deal with an influx of patients.

The airport successfully managed to stay open. Our goal was not to disrupt our tenants or passengers in their normal business. There will still be a follow-up with the various organizations so that we can discuss the event and analyze the positives and identify any items that we will need to correct in case of a real emergency of this nature. Following the reports, the airport can use this data to update our airport emergency plan, which is a comprehensive document that talks about all types of incidents that could impact the airport.


 

A few topics of discussion were brought up by both our commissioners as well as staff, these include:

• A look at the airports budget for the next FY 2026
• A discussion on density altitude and the way it affects the aircrafts that are used in our commercial service
• Air traffic control tower is under new management, an introduction to who they are and what they do