Business View Magazine | September 2019

109 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 2019 GRAND JUNCT ION REGIONAL A I RPORT So, we’re seeing all of that. And the Department of Interior just announced that the Bureau of Land Management’s headquarters will relocate from Washington, DC to Grand Junction. So, that will also bring additional people and additional attention to this region. We think that is going to continue to add momentum to the trends we currently see.” “As it applies to the Airport, there are a couple of things that are separate but related that are contributing to an acceleration of that growth,” Padalecki continues. “One is the City of Grand Junction approved a lodging tax increase in November of 2018 to fund air service development incentives. That will provide an ongoing stream of funds from the community to share in the risk of adding new and expanded service from the Airport with the airlines. So far, we have not used that funding; all the growth we’re seeing has been driven by the local economy and by some air service development work that the Airport’s completed. But we feel confident those trends will continue, in part, because we have a really valuable tool, now, to expand air service. So, we’re working closely with the airlines on that. “The second thing is we are home to Western Aviation, who won, for the sixth consecutive year, MRO of the Year designation. They continue to grow and expand and this year, they’re continuing to see strong growth. So, we’re really seeing growth on all fronts – our passenger traffic numbers, the number of landing operations, the number of diverted flights that come here because we’ve established ourselves as a really reliable airport.” Regarding reliability, Padalecki reports that Grand Junction Regional recently was awarded, for the second consecutive year, a five-star, on-time performance rating from LAG, an industry trade group. “That designation means that we finish the year ending May 2019, in the top ten percent of airports in the world for on-time departures. We are one of three airports in North America to receive that designation. So, reliability is a theme, here, as well, and that’s really helping to foster and promote growth. We have the addition of two new non-stop routes: Allegiant Airlines started non-