Business View Magazine | Volume 8, Issue 7

114 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 8, ISSUE 7 No matter how much revenue is being raised, innovation and cost-saving never hurt. Eagle County Regional has taken several steps in this direction, including de-icing. Of course, there is a lot of ice at that altitude in the winter, so they recently constructed a specialized de-icing pad. All the airlines take their planes to this centralized de-icing pad (the airline uses their own handlers for this), but when the fluid is sprayed on the plane it is collected underneath and stored underground for either recycling or evaporation. The airport has also placed several solar panel arrays on various buildings at the airport, which has been deferring a lot of electrical costs. Currently, they are working on an initiative with the rental car agencies to partner with the state for grant funding to look at electrifying the rental car fleet housed on-site. “The last year has been harder than most,” says Reid, “and Covid-19 did cost us about 23 percent of our revenue. But because we are a leisure location, we probably did better than most. In years and then build another parallel taxiway on the north side of the runway, Taxiway Bravo, to open up and develop more land on the north side of the property for hangars, as well as more aviation-related businesses. Airport expansion and maintenance always seem to come at an astronomical cost. When you look at economic impact, however, the numbers tell a different story. The Colorado Department of Transportation had just done an economic impact study pre-Covid and determined that the Eagle County Airport was directly responsible for over 5,000 jobs, $237 million worth of payroll, $388 million value-added dollars, and an astounding $642 million in business revenue. The county itself has a staff at the airport of just over 20, which includes the ARFF (Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting) Department with three fire trucks, including two state-of-the-art Oshkosh Striker trucks, as well as administration, operations, and maintenance staff. The airlines and tenants have their own employees as well.