In a move to accommodate more traffic, the Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport has increased their air traffic control coverage to 20 hours a day.
The airport will now control the hours between 5 a.m. and 1 a.m. daily, instead of 6 a.m. and midnight.
Bozeman Yellowstone International airport in Belgrade has quickly become the busiest airport in Montana and is only getting busier. With more passengers comes more flights, with more flights, comes more air traffic.
“With additional airline operations between the hours of midnight and 1 a.m. and also between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m. we believed it was time to have the control tower locally rather than having it controlled out Salt Lake City,” said Airport Director Brian Sprenger.
Airport officials worked with several different parties at the airport to make this change.
“We worked with both the FAA and the Contractor that provides Air Traffic Control at the airport here,” said Sprenger. “We had to get approvals from both to make this happen. We were thankful that they were able to work with us and provide the necessary coverage that we feel is necessary here.”
Since 2009, BZN has doubled the number of passengers traveling in and out of Bozeman. But a lot the additional tower operations will go to smaller non-commercial aircraft
”We were right around 600,000 passengers in 2009 now we’re over 1.2 million,” said Sprenger. “For aircraft operations that’s a variety of aircraft. That includes the airline aircraft which is about 18 percent of our total operations. The vast majority of our tower operations are going to be the smaller aircraft and that part has increased significantly.”
The additional hours come at an appropriate time as the airport continues to see growth.
The additional hours began on May 25.
