as Devils Lake Municipal Airport, it is situated near the beautiful city of Devils Lake in a region of North Dakota known for its natural outdoor potential and surroundings. This small, dynamic aviation hub continues to welcome a host of general aviation traffic, as well as commercial air service steadily growing in overall passenger numbers. With infrastructure projects in the works and a new terminal to provide its traveling public, Devils Lake Regional Airport has set its sights skyward. PASSENGER AND GROWTH NUMBERS HEADING SKYWARDS “We are a small commercial service airport, and we are trying to reach our goal of 10,000 passenger boardings annually, which will improve our Airport Improvement Program funding, and we should see a substantial increase,” Cruse relays. “We made just over 8,000 boardings in 2023, and over the last 18 of the last 19 months, we have had record passenger boardings, which is very exciting,” he continues. “I don’t know if it’s the terminal, the boarding bridge, or the advertising or what is bringing the folks in, but we have seen quite an increase in our boarding and are so excited about that.” When translated into growth numbers, Cruse highlights that “right now we are sitting at 78 and a half percent of what we had last year and we were 117.5% over 2022, last year. So, it is hard to say how the year will finish out, but it is looking positive, let’s put it that way,” Cruse asserts. He goes on to determine that “we are on track to have another record month for boardings which is fantastic.” As for commercial service, Devils Lake Regional offers two round trips a day to Denver with SkyWest Airlines (through United Airlines) and this represents a total of 13 round trips a week. “We share the Denver route with Jamestown Airport and between the two airports, many of our flights are to capacity.” Cruse adds. 199 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 11, ISSUE 12 DEVILS LAKE REGIONAL AIRPORT
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