BOISE, Idaho — Boise Airport is growing. The main air transportation hub for the area is looking to add parking, more gates, and hopefully a lot more flights.
"Over the last 12 years, we've actually seen passenger demand nearly double," said Boise Airport Director Rebecca Hupp.
Hupp also said they're trying to keep up by expanding everything. Their master plan, BOI Upgrade, details all their expansion projects. That includes the recently opened public parking garage, with 1,100 new spaces. There’s also a five-level 700 stall employee parking garage set to open any day now. There’s a seven-level 950 stall rental car garage and lobby that crews are just getting going on. And all this helps to set the table for the main course, or rather, the main concourse expansion.
"All of these projects we've done so far, are what we like to refer to as 'enabling projects,' meaning they're projects that will allow us to build a new terminal concourse,” said Director Hupp. “Currently, we have parking in areas where in the future we'll be parking aircraft. So, it's important that we relocate these other essential functions to other areas so we can expand the terminal building."
Hupp adds that the current employee and rental car parking sits right where they hope to expand the concourse, to the West of baggage claim, “The vision is that in probably 4-5 years, we'll have a new concourse with ten new gates."
New gates will hopefully mean a lot of new flights. Airlines make those decisions based on demand. So, if there is demand, they'll add flights, but only if there are enough gates. Right now, in Boise, there are not.
"Currently, the airport is very constrained on aircraft gate availability. So, we are constrained at certain times of the day in the number of flights that come in. There are other times of the day, where we can accommodate additional flights. But by expanding the concourse, we'll be able to add additional parking positions for aircraft, which could lead to new flights for our community," Hupp explains.
While the Airport is run by the City of Boise, tax dollars are not being used to pay for these upgrades. The airport is self-sufficient. Funding comes from fees paid by the airlines to the airport and through the passenger facility charge, which is about $4.50 added to every ticket.
According to Hupp, "All of the improvements that are happening here at the airport are paid for through airport revenue. None of the improvements are paid for using general taxpayer dollars or general funds."
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