By all accounts, Yampa Valley Regional Airport Director Kevin Booth came by his job easily.

After working as an engineer on a team that constructed an Israeli Air Force Base in the Negev Desert in the late 1970s, he went on to serve 30 years in the U.S. Air Force.

He flew F-16s and F-15s and served as a squad commander for airfield operations in Spangdahelm, Germany and in Anchorage before landing his role as director of the Yampa Valley Regional Airport in 2015.

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Looking down the barrel of a planned, multi-decade $174 million terminal expansion plan and an expected record-setting year for passenger travel through the airport he oversees next year, Booth reflected on how things have changed since he took the job.

“When I arrived, we only had four airlines providing service, we now have six, and we were down around 100,000, and 2016 I think we got up to around 116,000 enplanements,” Booth said. “We didn’t really see great growth initially, and then we saw a fifth airline in 2018, and that brought in some more passengers. And then COVID is where things really changed.”

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Enplanements are a Federal Aviation Administration-mandated measure of the number of passengers who board a plane at an airport. The statistic, Booth explained, is one that can reliably be doubled to determine the number of passengers processed by the airport each year.

Passenger numbers at the regional airport have steadily increased since Booth signed on as director, buoyed by the enplanements processed during the busy winter season and, most recently, by the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We got into 2020 and, obviously, we took a hit like every airport, where nobody was traveling there for a couple of months,” Booth said. “In 2020, we also brought in Southwest through our partnership with the Ski and Resort Corp. They have been a real game-changer, especially when it comes to locals flying, because it had a real positive impact on ticket prices.”

In 2024, Booth said passenger enplanements are expected to jump to 238,000 — up from 214,000 expected by the end of 2023.

The increased passenger figures are driven by advances in aircraft design and an increase in the number of seasonal flights landing at the airport. This year’s winter season will see 15 direct flights from destinations that include Boston, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and Minneapolis.

But those added flight numbers are also a result of the ski resort’s expansion. Earlier this month, Steamboat Ski & Resort Corp. began operating the Wild Blue Gondola to the top of Sunshine Peak. Also this season, skiers and riders will access the resort’s brand new 650-acre terrain expansion in the Mahogany Ridge area.

“We are on definitely on the map now, and there’s more people wanting to ski here, so that definitely impacts us,” Booth said. “I would say 75% of our enplanements we see from mid-December through early April.”

To keep pace with the resort’s expansion and accompanying increased air traffic, the airport spent $8.1 million on capital expenditures this year — on work that included adding car rental infrastructure, general aviation infrastructure and grading work and expanded employee parking.

But that is only the beginning.

In 2024, the airport has budgeted $15.7 million for capital expenditures to support projects such as the installation of a blast pad, along with reconfigured taxiway connectors and a $5.1 million western terminal expansion project that will add three new jetways.

The work planned for next year is part of the first phase of a Terminal Area Plan that will see the airport spend $88 million on expansion work over the next three years, and $174 million by 2040.

“At the end of the day, all of our gates are going to be universal so that they can all handle the larger airplanes, like the one that is just taxiing in front of me right now,” Booth said as he watched an American Airlines Boeing 737-800 from Dallas roll by his office.

More passengers and a bigger footprint mean more revenue for the Yampa Valley Regional Airport, which operates as an enterprise fund for Routt County.

Next year, the county’s budget estimates expect the airport to pull in $2.8 million in revenue earned from income streams including landing fees, taxi, limo and bus fees, and parking fees.

If the predicted revenue figure is reached, the airport’s reserve fund will top $28 million — an important factor when it comes to applying for federal grants through the FAA.

“Our reserves have been growing over the last four or five years and they are in a good position, and it gives us leverage, frankly, with the Federal Aviation Administration as they look at this, they want to know what we are going to invest,” Booth said.

But with the planned expansion and accompanying revenue growth at the airport, Booth said keeping up with personnel demands will be pivotal. The county currently employs around 35 people year-round with roughly 50 positions added for the busy winter season at the airport.

Adding individuals employed by the airlines and through the Transportation Safety Administration, rental car agencies, ground handlers and shuttle bus operators, there are a total of about 500 people representing the workforce that makes the Yampa Valley Regional Airport run.

Booth said if the terminal expansion is completed by 2024, he would estimate the number of county employees alone to increase by about 25%, and that represents an already existing challenge for the airport when it comes to hiring.

Booth estimated 95% of airport personnel employed by the county today live in either Hayden or in Craig, but said there is still a struggle to find qualified applicants.

“The last firefighter we hired struggled to find housing, he eventually found something in Craig, which is where he was looking, but even in Craig he was having trouble finding something that was suitable,” Booth said. “And by the same token, one of my admin staff who was renting a home in Craig, because of property values, the owners decided to sell the house and the new owners didn’t want to rent it, so she struggled a little bit to find a new place.”

But with housing units coming online in the Hayden area, Booth expressed hope that the challenge would be alleviated. He said having a dedicated staff willing to commit to the challenge of maintaining the airport’s operations for visitors is of the upmost importance.

“We take a lot of pride in the terminal we have today and how clean we keep it, and we are very cognizant that we are the first impression and the last impression for visitors to this valley,” Booth said. “So we want to have them to have a good experience coming and going, and providing good customer service and a clean and well-organized facility is part of that. It’s a team effort.”