BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

The Newest U.S. Airport Will Open Thursday In A North Dakota Oil Boomtown

Following
This article is more than 4 years old.


United Airlines’ Flight 4643 Thursday morning from Denver to Williston, North Dakota, will be historic, the first flight to land at the country’s newest airport.

Williston Basin International Airport, code XWA, will open the morning after the shutdown of Williston’s Sloulin Field International Airport. Sloulin opened in 1947; its last departure will take place Wednesday. Good bye ISN.

The arrival of Flight 4643, scheduled for 10:53 AM CDT Thursday, will mark one of the rare times when a U.S. airport authority, in this case the City of Williston, shut down an old airport one day and opened a new one the next day.

The best-known example occurred in February 1995, when Denver International Airport replaced Stapleton. United flight 1474 from Colorado Springs was first to arrive, according to Wikipedia.

Perhaps the only other cases in recent decades occurred in May 2010, when Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport replaced Panama City-Bay County Airport and in May 1999, when Austin-Bergstrom International Airport opened in Austin, Texas, replacing Robert Mueller Municipal Airport.

Sloulin Field, beset with problems, badly needs to be replaced.

Perhaps the biggest one is that its 6,650-foot principal runway has a 90-foot elevation difference from one end to the other. The associated problems have limited carriers to flying 50-seat aircraft to and from Sloulin Field.

“We regularly have to bump 15 of the 50 passengers off,” said Airport Director Anthony Dudas. When the wind is higher than 15 miles per hour, passengers must disembark. “This happens two or three times a week throughout the year,” he said.

Besides the slope, the runway suffers from weak pavement. “To replace the pavement to meet current Federal Aviation Administration design and safety standards would require 40 million to 50 million yards of dirt and take up two years,” Dudas said.

The main runway at XWA will be level from one end to the other and will extend 7,500 feet, able to accommodate an Airbus A321 or a Boeing 757.

Dudas, named airport director in 2017, joined the airport staff in 2011, after working at airports in Austin and St. Cloud, Minnesota. “I’ve always been interested in small airport operations,” he said. As opposed to running a bigger airport, “You do everything here,” he said.

Williston has been at the center of North Dakota’s boom-bust-smaller boom energy economy. The city’s population grew from 14,716 in 2010 to over 30,000 in 2014 to about 27,000 in 2018.

The airport’s only two carriers are United, which flies to Denver, and Delta, which flies to Minneapolis. United has about 60% of the traffic. Both now plan to bring in bigger regional aircraft than the 50-seaters that serviced Sloulin.

In 2018, the airport accommodated about 148,000 passengers, down from about 240,000 in the boom year of 2014. The growth has been remarkable, given the 2009 total of just 22,000 passengers. So far, 2019 traffic is up about 22% from 2018.

Still, the constant threat of irregular operations convinces many potential passengers to drive to Minot International Airport, 125 miles away.

The trend line makes planning tough, but it seems clear that Williston needed a new airport.

In 2016, the city hired Phoenix developer Don Cardon to oversee the conversion of the old airport’s 700-acre downtown site into a mixed-use master-planned community. Later, the city expanded Cardon’s role to include oversight of XWA construction.  The new site is on 1,600 acres about 10 miles north of Williston.

The new airport cost $273 million, financed with $106 million from the FAA, $55 million from the state and $112 million from bonds supported by airport revenue. The second project will cost about $80 million, financed by property sales to various developers. It will include a new civic center, a hotel, retail and office space, about 1,500 housing units and a hockey arena.

“The old airport was not built for the weight loads coming in and out of there,” Cardon said. “The city was motivated to look for other sites” not only because Sloulin is too small but also because of the impracticality of a temporary shutdown.

“We are in the middle of the Bakken boom,” Cardon said. “We couldn’t shut down for two or three years.”

Starting Thursday, Cardon can focus on dismantling the old airport and revitalizing the site. “We will work for the next four to five years on getting the old airport built up,” he said.

A drawback is that cold North Dakota weather limits the amount of outdoor work that can be done between November and May.

The job falls into Cardon’s specialty, public private partnerships.  He began as deputy housing director for the City of Phoenix. In 2002 he launched Cardon Development Group, which developed a $1 billion mixed-use project in downtown Phoenix. He later oversaw privatization of the Arizona Department of Commerce.

Cardon credits Williston’s leadership with undertaking a big job. “Local officials are decisive and very committed to doing the right thing,” he said. “There are not a lot of egos in Williston.”

Once the new airport open, Dudas will finally be in a position to do a job that airport directors routinely pursue: recruiting airlines.

“We are working to attract additional air service,” he said. “One of the highest priorities is a leisure carrier. We are underserved for leisure travelers and we have high fares.” Allegiant, Frontier and Sun Country are potential targets, he acknowledged, as is American Airlines service to Dallas.

Airport consultant Mike Boyd said he looks favorably on the Williston project.

“Any airport in that region is a sound investment,” Boyd said. “The market is future-sound and not subject to traffic bubbles that have resulted in a number of larger cities adding airport capacity that is now under-utilized.

“Williston has a sound business base, and there is enough disposable income for an impulse discretionary carrier like Allegiant,” Boyd said.

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn