Ely Airport

Today, Ely Airport is outfitted with two asphalt runways capable of handling commercial and large charter flights. The longest, Runway 18/36, is 6,018 feet long and 150 feet wide. Runway 12/30 is 4,825 feet long and 60 feet wide. “We do not currently have passenger service,” Parish reports. “But we are hoping with the capital improvements made in the past several years, we might see that return.” Among those improvements were a complete reconstruction of Runway 18-36 and Taxiway A. Included in the project were new lights for Runway 18-36 and a new emergency generator for airfield lighting. This project was completed in the spring of 2019. Timely completion of the project earned Ely Airport the Federal Aviation Administration’s Outstanding Airport Award for that year. There are currently 10 private planes stored at the airport. MedX AirOne built a new hangar earlier this year and there is plenty of space for additional hangars to be built on the airport’s 4,999 acres. Ameriflight runs daily flights to Ely Airport for UPS package delivery and corporate representatives from Love’s Travel Stop fly in on a regular basis to check on a nearby location. There is also some flight activity related to large ranches in the area. “Out here in Nevada, around 1948, they had what they call the haylift,” recalls Travis Godon, White Pines County Commission Vice Chairman and Airport Liaison. “They got so much snow in winter they had to feed all the cattle by dropping hay out of the airplanes. The airport was used quite a bit for that.” The United States Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management has a district office in Ely, and the Ely Airport is used heavily by them during fire season. The Ely District itself encompasses 12 million acres in eastern Nevada. That includes White Pine County, Lincoln County and a small portion of Nye County. One benefit of Ely’s remote location and current lack of passenger service is that COVID-19 has had little effect on the airport. There was never a closure. U.S. Sen. Patrick McCarran from Reno, a proponent of the aviation industry and a sponsor of the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938, helped secure $350,000 for runway improvement and lights at Ely Airport in 1941. The airport has the distinction of being the smallest destination to be served year round by United Airlines jets. The first commercial flights at the Airport came via United Airlines’ Convair 340s in 1955. The airport was also part of United’s last piston flights, the Douglas DC-6s, in 1970. United then used Convair 580s, flown by Frontier Airlines from 1950 to 1986, via a subcontract arrangement. United Boeing 737-200s took over from 1977 to 1982, flying San Francisco to Reno to Elko (Nevada) to Ely to Salt Lake City and back. On November 12, 2006, Air Midwest Beechcraft 1900Ds began flights to McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas via Cedar City Regional Airport in Utah. The stop in Cedar City was due to the fact that McCarran Airport requires Transportation Security Administration screening, and that was not available at Ely Airport at that time.