Business View Magazine | March 2020

168 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE MARCH 2020 APPLY NOW! msubillings.edu Accessible. A ordable. Attainable. Receive a high-quality, a ordable education in the largest city in Montana. some additional service coming in,” he reports. “American is going to add a second Dallas flight, and Alaska is expanding its Portland service to two times a day.” In addition, Allegiant will add service to San Diego in June 2020. “2018 was a record year,” Ploehn adds. “2019 was a new record year. We are on a growth cycle, right now; we had over 474,000 enplanement this year compared to 451,000 last year. So, Billings is doing just fine at the moment.” Billings Logan is also a regional cargo hub for eastern Montana and northern Wyoming. “Our freight is growing, right now,” says Ploehn. “UPS and FedEx have both upped their operations, here. We had 20 percent growth in 2018, and 22 percent growth in 2019. So, those are pretty good numbers on the freight side. And we’re seeing more and more of the smaller aircraft that support freight service. UPS and FedEx come to Billings and pull their freight canisters off the larger aircraft; they sort the freight and then a lot of it gets transferred onto, what we call, the “mosquito fleet”– Beech 1900s and 99s. Those aircraft go to and from all the other communities in Montana and northern Wyoming. We’ve gone from having about 13 of those aircraft to almost 20, so we’re seeing a lot of growth there.” The Airport is also home to about 150 general aviation aircraft, and as is the case with many GA airports, there is a waiting list for hangars. Ploehn says that the City of Billings owned Airport does not build any, itself, but there is land available for private development. “We’d do the ground infrastructure and then we’d lease parcels to those folks and they can build their own hangar,” he remarks. “We had one large hangar built here, last year, and we’re in discussion with the FBO – Edwards Jet Center, which is looking at building a couple of hangars in the future. Additionally, in our business development park, there’s been more interest in building some larger maintenance hangars over there. It’s kind of a snowball effect; when one business does well, like the cargo and freight