Idaho Falls Airport opens for public tours
Have you ever wondered where your luggage goes after you check it? Or what equipment airports use to clear the runways? On Thursday, the public got to find out. Because it is currently closed for runway reconstruction, the Idaho Falls Regional Airport decided to open its doors to the public for behind the scenes tours. For some kids it was exciting to go behind the scenes.
“Going outside and looking at all the cool equipment and the cool trucks and the yeah, the snow plow,” said Jaden, who was there for the airport tour.
The tour also gave the new airport director a chance to interact with the public.
“I got to meet all kinds of people,” said Rick Cloutier, director of the Idaho Falls Regional Airport. “It’s very important. We are a part of city government so as much as we can be we need to be transparent to the community.”
People saw typically closed off areas and got up close with things they often see only from the airport or airplane windows such as snow plows, fuel tankers, and even an Idaho Rescue plane.
“We’re part of the city government, but we’re an enterprise fund of the city where we don’t take any tax dollars from the general fund of the city,” Cloutier said. “So no tax dollars come in to support the airport, we’re self-sufficient upon ourselves. So we have our own snow removal equipment, our own fire fighting equipment, police equipment.”
Hundreds came out for the tours. Airport managers hope it helps ease many people’s fear of flying.
“We’re going to bring you to a strange place, the airport,” Cloutier said. “We’re going to make you go through security, which is uncomfortable for most people. We’re going to put you on a small object with lots of other strangers. So hopefully people get an awareness of kind of what goes on, the reason behind those things is for the safety and security of all passengers.”
The tour was only on Thursday. Airport managers say these tours probably won’t happen until the airport closes again, which is about every 10 to 20 years.
