Business View Magazine | Volume 8, Issue 6

142 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 8, ISSUE 6 Sedona Helicopter Tours The Ultimate Off-Road Adventure Book your flight today: www.guidanceair.com | 928-351-1000 Sedona Tours | Prescott Tours | Adventure Combos | Private Charters town makes the airport a real economic driver, bringing in some $76 million in revenue to the local economy. The airport also makes an incredible introduction to the region for tourists who come via plane. But more than that, it promotes aviation in a fun and visible way. “We do whatever we can to promote aviation,” Rose adds, “from the young Eagles Program to outreach programs. We are also not far from Prescott, which is the home of Embry- Riddle Aeronautical University and there’s a big draw for aviation-minded folks to the university and its offerings. What we hope is that they will take that knowledge and come back to work at airports like Sedona. We have a couple of their students coming here for internships now; one is doing a major in airport management and so we’re going to give that young lady some additional management experience over the summer. Another fellow is interested in the pilot side of aviation, so we’re going to expose him to have to do some geometry corrections, which the FAA is going to require in terms of runway intersections. Ours are currently straight into the ramp and the new requirements have at least two 90-degree angles. So, there is some work to be done there as well.” Sedona Airport has 32,000 operations a year right now, and although there was a slowdown in March and April of 2020 when impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic began, they took that time to fill 8,000 linear feet of cracks, and shortly after that business took off again. According to Rose, “Our trajectory had just gone nuts the first quarter of this year. It was the best quarter ever, historically, and up by 100 percent or more than any previous quarter recorded. Business is booming, and people are beating down the door to get up here… we just need to get the infrastructure in place first so we can expand.” Rose points out that being in the middle of the