Business View Magazine - Nov 2023

265 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 10, ISSUE 11 CEDAR CI T Y REGIONAL AI RPORT We recently caught up with Cedar City Regional Airport Manager Tyler Galetka. He told us more about this facility of some 1040 acres, dating back about 100 years, and located two miles northwest of downtown Cedar City. It’s a place where smaller jets take off for Salt Lake City and beyond, Galetka informs. “We are a commercial-service regional airport,” he reveals, “and we’re scheduled for service by a Delta connection flight operated by SkyWest Airlines, so we get about 12 flights a week right now. Essentially, right now the Cedar City Airport is pretty much like a general-aviation airport with some commercial service.” The airport has a twofold nature, he adds, with aspects of both commercial service and general aviation. The airline industry as a whole––always volatile, even in the best of times, Galetka notes––took a big punch from the recent COVID pandemic. Still, fortunately for Cedar City, even though it was not in the best market during the pandemic, as Galetka opines, it wasn’t among the airports with scaled-back operations. The usual 12 weekly flights remained in place. In 2020, says Galetka, the airport’s runways were closed for reconstruction for about three months. That of course took a big toll on its commercial service. Yet now, a more business-as-usual feeling has returned. The airport is now on an upward trajectory, bouncing back to pre-COVID levels. “We’re always looking for progress and change,” says Galetka, who adds that, given fluid fuel costs and other such economic factors, he and his colleagues remain hopeful. Further, he continues, if ticket prices come down, demand shoots up, things will improve even more. He says the airport benefits from the United States Department of Transportation federal subsidies. This is the EAS or Essential Air Service program. It helps such smaller markets as Cedar City and