Pocatello Airport sees growth in passenger numbers

Nowadays, it’s rare for the Pocatello Regional Airport to not see full flights coming and leaving the airport gates.

Airport manager David Allen said October’s report shows a 10-percent increase in passengers flying in and out of the airport since this past year.

He said it’s due to two things:

“Number one, they (the airlines) have created competitive fares for us,” Allen said.

Within the past 14 months, he noticed it costs an average of $180 less to fly out of Pocatello versus the Idaho Falls airport.

Although Allen estimates it costs $116 more to fly out of Pocatello rather than Salt Lake City, he said other variable costs such as transportation make Pocatello the cheaper choice.

“When you think about the savings in driving and hours of time – it’s going to take you at least five hours round-trip plus the time down there takes you two hours just to process through,” Allen said.

The second factor, he attributes to the introduction of the Canadair Regional Jet service which started being offered to passengers in June.

The jet can seat 50 passengers rather than the 30 passengers previously offered.

Allen would also like to remind passengers to get to the airport at least one hour before their flight is scheduled to depart.

For a list of holiday flight times from the Pocatello airport, go to http://bit.ly/1crXJSO.