February 2024 was a record-setting month at The Eastern Iowa Airport in Cedar Rapids.
Pam Hinman, the airport’s director of marketing and communications, told the Cedar Rapids Airport Commission Monday morning, March 25, that the airport recorded 118,454 passengers in February.
That’s a new February airport passenger record, up 1.4% from the previous February record set in February 2020, just before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, when there were 116,829 total passengers at the airport.
Preliminary passenger numbers for March are also looking promising, Ms. Hinman said. For the five-day period from March 7-11, at the beginning of spring break for many local students, the airport had nearly 10,000 more seats available than during the same period in 2023.
“We won’t know (the March numbers) until the April meeting, but I have every reason to believe that it’ll be a record,” she said.
Ms. Hinman also pointed to airlines maintaining or increasing their flights at the airport. She said American Airlines is continuing their pattern of two flights a day to Phoenix and is fluctuating between one and two daily flights to Washington, D.C., a service that was begun in June 2023. And United Airlines is considering adding a third daily flight from Cedar Rapids to Denver, beginning this fall.
“Their schedule definitely fluctuates, so I say that with some caution,” she said of the United flight schedule. “But the overall point is the airlines are continuing to invest.”
The commission also voted to award a contract for reconstruction of the airport’s taxilane D and replacement of the Airfield Lighting Control & Monitoring System (ALCMS). The contract was awarded to Metro Pavers Inc., with a base bid of $3,215,704.66.
A public hearing was set for April 22 on the proposed construction of a taxiway expansion project. Airport operations director Todd Gibbs said the proposal would add a taxiway extension just to the north of the public safety office, opening up the 40 acres that comprise Tract 7 of the airport’s development plan to provide for industrial aviation enhancements in the area.
And the commission voted to approve a four-year extension of the airport’s concession contract with SSP America, including a clause under which the concession operator will complete a $750,000 renovation of the Cedar Ridge Barrel Room at the airport. The new concession contract will expire in 2033.
