Airport business soars in 2018

Business at the Sweetwater County Regional Airport continues to climb as the airports 2018 figures show growth over previous years.

Speaking to the Green River City Council Tuesday night, Devon Brubaker, airport director, said the airport has its third best year on record as far as the number of passengers processed. Nearly 48,000 passengers utilized the Sweetwater County Regional Airport in 2018.

That amount is up 32.2 percent over passenger numbers in 2017 and 47.7 percent over 2016’s passenger count.

The two higher years, 2011 and 2012, were a result of the booming oil and gas economy in Southwestern Wyoming.

For the fourth straight year, the airport has had a 99 percent airline reliability percentage. Airline reliability measures how much an airline adheres to its scheduled flights.

Brubaker said ore than 46 million pounds of aircraft have utilized the airport in 2018, which includes, charter, cargo and airline flights. Additionally, 1.2 million pounds of freight originating primarily through Fed-Ex and UPS, were handled at the airport as well. The airport pumped 500,015 gallons of fuel to planes throughout the year and handled more than 17,000 operations.

Burbaker said the new hangar, which opened in April 2018, has housed 295 aircraft and generated approximately $666,000 in revenue. Baker said the previous facility would only generate about $3,000 in revenue a year.

Other business

Sales tax revenue was up by $390,000 from sales tax receipts from this period last year, according to Mayor Pete Rust. City Administrator Reed Clevenger said sales tax receipts for March are not typically as good as they’ve seen this month. Rust said there is some concern it might be an anomaly, but choses to believe the amount the city received is legitimate.

“I think it’s just a lot of shopping that came on late,” Rust said. “I’m an optimist ... we got it.”