Advance Casper and the Fly Casper Alliance aim to preserve Casper’s air service by supporting the management and Board of Directors at the Casper/Natrona County International Airport (C/NCIA) and increasing awareness about the economic importance of the C/NCIA as the State’s only international airport and the only Wyoming airport with a Foreign Trade Zone.
Click here to learn more about the Foreign Trade Zone and what it could mean for your business!
The Alliance is an arm of Advance Casper, a public/private economic development entity, formed to diversify and grow business in the Casper, Natrona County area.
The Alliance is made up of community stakeholders and organizations that want to support, retain, and enhance Casper’s commercial air service, in turn strengthening, growing, and diversifying the local economy.
Additionally, the Alliance supports the pilot training program at Casper College and seeks to make Casper known as a center for pilot and airline mechanic training.
Across the country we are seeing several rural airports lose their commercial air service and the consequences to these communities is devastating. Opportunity diminishes as businesses and workforce cease operations or expansion because the community’s accessibility impedes growth.
As the business center of the state, it is crucial for Casper to maintain its SkyWest/Delta flights to keep and attract new business and diversify revenue sources for the city and state.
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The Casper/Natrona County International Airport (C/NCIA) is a rural airport with two direct incoming and outgoing daily flights. One flight is direct to Denver International Airport, and the other is direct to Salt Lake City International Airport. Both of these flights are crucial to expanding the local economy by connecting people, products, and services to wider markets, promoting tourism, and transporting people quickly and efficiently.
In the fall of 2022, SkyWest, our Salt Lake City air service partners, announced the potential suspension of air service due to a drop in demand. Losing this flight would most certainly impact future ability to reobtain the flight, as seen with other rural airports, although extenuating circumstances like COVID-19, pilot shortage, and oil and gas production reduction contributed to this decline.
Glenn Januska, director of C/NCIA, proposed a minimum revenue guarantee (MRG), which is additional financial support from the state and county provided to airports in order to maintain flights. This is a common mechanism for rural airports, such as Jackson and Sheridan, to stay operational, and a mechanism not yet exercised by C/NCIA until now. Casper enjoys a good relationship with SkyWest, and SkyWest has been very accommodating while the county formulate a plan to keep air service in Casper.
Address: 139 W. 2nd Street, Suite 1-D
Casper, WY 82601
Phone: (307) 577-7011
Email: YourFriends@AdvanceCasper.com