Cortez Municipal Airport

years. What we hope to be working on first is a lot of projects that were already listed in previous plans but never realized, such as extending our taxiway and taxi lanes for hangar development, as well as trying to get commercial and private development.” There are also plans to relocate the terminal to the northwest side of the airfield and make it a much larger terminal. Additionally, the runway is slated for resurfacing soon, at which time it will be made compliant for regional jets. Patton explains, “Whether we get commercial “jets” or not, we plan to scale everything up to make sure we meet all the requirements. We hope to recertify our Part 139 compliance, and then no matter what happens we are ready for it.” Some other recently completed projects include building three new helipads, as well as a substantial redo of the ramp area and taxi lanes. This allowed for more room for tie-downs and created stronger shoulders for larger aircraft – to help scale abilities for the airport to see potential development with larger planes. Cortez has seen a huge increase in operations this year due to an unexpected source – COVID-19 vaccines. People from larger cities, as far away as California and Florida, who cannot get access to vaccines have been flying into Cortez to take advantage of the lower population and therefore lower wait times. Colorado Health Department data shows that by the end of March 2021 about 43 percent of Coloradans who had received their first doses, and had addresses on file, got those shots outside of their home county. The state also vaccinated more than 20,000 people from out of state. It is a temporary uptick in terms of airport usage, but an interesting one to be sure. Another significant amount of tourism traffic comes in and out of Cortez Municipal Airport as a result of nearby Dunton Destinations – a collection of extraordinary, secluded, unique Courtesy of Efrain Vaquera Courtesy of Efrain Vaquera Courtesy of Jodi Pym