IDAHO FALLS — As the city looks to wrap up its master planning process for the Idaho Falls Regional Airport, some neighbors are upset by plans to expand the airport’s footprint onto nearby private property.
Airport Director Ian Turner presented on the 20-year master plan last Wednesday to the Idaho Falls Rotary Club.
Airport growing leaps and bounds
The planning process is taking place during a season of consistent growth at the airport.
In 2004, the Idaho Falls airport offered two routes — to Boise and Salt Lake. Today, it provides service to Seattle, Portland, Salt Lake City, Denver, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Mesa, Dallas Fort Worth, Oakland and Orange County, California.
Recently, in 2024, United Airlines expanded its fourth daily flight to Denver past the summer season.
“Delta provided mainline A220 service (with more than 110 seats) in October, Alaska added a second daily Seattle flight and Allegiant increased its Portland, Oregon service to year-round twice a week,” Turner presented.
Starting May 22, Allegiant will be offering year-round service to Denver twice a week.
“Available seats at Idaho Falls Regional Airport are projected to be up about 18% year-over-year,” he shared.
Last year, the airport facilitated 307,942 enplanements, a 75% increase from the 175,645 enplanements in 2019, Turner presented.
The master plan
Since July 2021, the airport has been putting together its two-decade plan to prepare for future infrastructure needs to meet the airport’s projected growth rates.
“An airport master plan takes your existing conditions at your airport and your community, applies one of a number of forecasting methodologies approved by the FAA, projects it out 20 years, and then fills in the gap with your needs,” Turner said.
The master plan will come before the Idaho Falls City Council for approval in April and be considered by the Federal Aviation Administration in May, Turner said.
Facility expansion
The plan overview includes approximately $390 million in improvements, including:
- “Relocating the air traffic control tower
- “Relocating and enlarging the aircraft deicing pad
- “Expanding the terminal building and adding two gates for future airlines
- “Expanding economy and employee parking and adding a cell phone waiting lot.”
The plan includes construction of a three-story parking garage with 505 parking spots, including a car rental on the first floor occupying 143 spaces. Eight additional lots would provide 2,643 other parking spaces for a total capacity of 3,148 vehicles.
The airfield would have its “runway shoulders and blast pads enlarged, taxiway expanded and 41 additional hangars added” for the general aviation community, the overview states.
The plan also recommends “relocating the aircraft rescue and firefighting station to facilitate cargo expansion.”
The total cost for the changes is estimated at $390,041,259. Construction would be performed in three phases – short-term (one to five years), medium-term (six to 10 years) and long-term (11-20 years), the plan states.
The full master plan overview is available here.
Current terminal expansion project
In addition to the proposed changes incorporated into the master plan, the airport is about to undergo a $60 million renovation to the “baggage makeup area, ticket counters, offices, utilities and infrastructure.”
That project should begin in spring or summer 2025 and last about two years, according to Idaho Falls city spokesman Eric Grossarth.
None of the funds for the current terminal expansion come from city tax dollars, Turner said.
Upset neighbors
Nearby in Osgood, Dennis Hartmann is unhappy with the plan’s proposed construction of an air cargo facility on land adjacent to the airport that is currently private property.
He said that the airport could have closed its secondary airstrip (runway 17-35) and placed the air cargo facility there — an alternative that was considered earlier in the planning process.
He prefers that the airport not pursue its current “west-side development” plan, which requires land acquisition and the expansion of the airport’s boundaries.
“It (runway 17-35) is not a very heavily used little runway,” Hartmann said. “The general aviation on the most part, is using this big, nice one. … So to keep that (17-35) runway open, they’re going to spend $25 million to develop this (air cargo facility)” near his home.
Hartmann said that on a per-use basis for the runway, that’s an expensive decision.
He feels the airport’s general aviation community holds excessive influence over the decision-making process.
“They pay to rent a hanger, but they don’t pay to fly in and off of the runway, but we’re paying to maintain it,” he said.
He believes an impact study should have been conducted before the Airport Board determined which alternative to pursue as part of the airport’s master plan. He worries the new air cargo facility near his home could significantly increase the volume of airplane traffic.
“You’re going to put in an air cargo facility, which could be 24/7 airplanes coming in off of this new taxiway,” Hartmann said. “… How is that compatible with residential (housing) being 30 feet from an air cargo (facility)?”
He’s also concerned about the impact of increased traffic from the air cargo facility on Old Butte Road/26th West, which the Bonneville Metropolitan Planning Organization has designated as a future principal arterial.
“Now we’re moving this facility here, so you’re going to have these vans and trucks and public going to pick up packages using this — changing the traffic pattern on this road.”
Director says airport seeks to be a ‘good neighbor’
Turner responded to these concerns stating the airport works hard to be a good neighbor.
“The air cargo has to go somewhere, and it is most readily capable of meeting our demand on the west side of the airport,” he said.
He said that with the construction of the new 41 hangers, air traffic use on runway 17-35 will increase.
“Just because we don’t have the operations today doesn’t mean that those 40 hangars that we need aren’t going to generate the operations we need to have a second runway,” Turner said.
He acknowledged some of the impacts of the project are “undesirable” to residents.
“When the airport was originally built, it was not in town,” Turner said. “Tens and hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested into the airport where it’s at. … Ultimately, unless we can’t meet the growth on our existing footprint, the FAA is not going to participate in relocating the airport somewhere else. We have to really make do.”
You can learn more about the airport’s master plan at ifairportmp.com.
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