August/September Business View Magazine

122 123 T he Colorado Springs Airport is a city-owned, civil-military airport, six miles southeast of Colorado Springs, in El Paso County. The facility first opened in 1927, on two gravel runways; in the late 1930s, its first scheduled airline flight went from El Paso, Texas, through Pueb- lo, Colorado Springs, to Denver, and back. The Airport’s first municipal terminal was built in 1942– the same year the airfield was taken over by the War Services Administration to train pilots to fly P-38s and other military aircraft.When World War II ended, the Airport revert- ed back to the City of Colorado Springs control, except for the north end of the property, which became Peterson Air Force Base in 1948. After sharing facilities with the military for a quarter century, the City of Colorado Springs built a new terminal in 1966, which was further expanded several times over the next two de- cades. In 1991, the voters of Colorado Springs approved a bond issue for the construction of a brand new terminal to replace the crowded, outdated one. More than 50,000 citizens turned out for the 1994 grand opening of the THE COLORADO SPRINGS AIRPORT COMMERCIAL SERVICE AND MORE The