2020 Airport of the Year
Posted 3/11/21 (Thu)
Fargo Receives Commercial Service Airport of the Year
Fargo’s Hector International Airport has received the “2020 Commercial Service Airport of the Year” award. The award is for excellence in maintaining safety, project management, and community outreach and is sponsored by the North Dakota Aeronautics Commission in partnership with the Airport Association of North Dakota.
Airport Accomplishments for 2020:
2020 saw airports across the country face unprecedented challenges as the COVID-19 pandemic caused a historic decrease in commercial air travelers due to public health concerns. Hector International Airport worked hard to rise to the challenge, ramping up cleaning efforts to protect passengers and employees and investing in a robot vacuum unit to allow airport staff to focus on sanitizing vital areas throughout the facility. In December, the North Dakota Army National Guard began offering rapid-result COVID-19 testing at the airport terminal to help protect families and the community.
Hector International Airport boasts a busy and rapidly growing air cargo facility. 2020 was a record year with more than 420 million pounds of cargo flown through airport and a growth of 7.5% over the previous year. To support these operations, the airport is in the midst of a $15.9 million project that will greatly expand the air cargo aircraft apron and enhance capacity. Additional development projects include the expansion of the airport’s maintenance shop and the construction of an additional building to house vital maintenance and snow removal vehicles. A new $32 million support and training facility is also under construction to serve three North Dakota Army National Guard units.
Hector International Airport has joined with The Arts Partnership to showcase the work of local artists with its ArtWORKS exhibit. As part of the program, a variety of local musicians regaled airport visitors with 18 live musical performances during the 2020 holiday season. The Fargo Air Museum hosted a series of public events during the year including educational youth camps designed to get students excited about the fields of science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics. 2020 also saw the Fargo Jet Center celebrate its 25th anniversary serving the Fargo-Moorhead area.
The Hector International Airport is congratulated for a tremendous year of accomplishments.
Hettinger Receives General Aviation Airport of the Year
The JB Lindquist Regional Airport has received the North Dakota “2020 General Aviation Airport of the Year” award. The award was announced on March 9th, 2021 at the Fly-ND Conference held online. The award is sponsored by the North Dakota Aeronautics Commission in partnership with the Airport Association of North Dakota. This award is for excellence in community awareness, airport management, special events, and beautification projects.
Airport Accomplishments for 2020:
The airport showed a strong belief in aviation advocacy and community outreach. The airport hosted a career day where high school shop class students were educated on career opportunities in aviation and learned how aircraft systems are different compared to vehicles. The airport also worked with Dakota Butte Museum and presented on the history of Hettinger Municipal Airport, starting around the 1930s. Another event the airport does annually, and has for the past 35 years, but was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic is discovery flights for all the first graders in Hettinger.
The JB Lindquist Regional Airport showed community support by being one of the only airports to host a fly-in breakfast in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The event raised about $1,500 to help support the local fire department. The airport attended other fly-ins in the area at private airstrips on local farms and ranches.
The airport showed great progress in 2020 by constructing several projects. They poured concrete pads by the GA terminal and self-serve fuel tanks, installed digital keypad locks on the majority of the hangars for added security, replaced airport windsocks, extended the crosswind overrun by 300’, and finished rehabilitation of both partial parallel taxiways as well as constructed a full parallel taxiway.
Air Dakota Flite Inc, the Fixed Base Operator (FBO) located on the airport, has many accommodations including major aircraft airframe and power plant repairs, agriculture application services, pilot instruction, and aircraft sales. The FBO also created a maintenance schedule to systematically updated aircraft with ADS-B and equipped their pilots with iPads to serve as an electronic flight bag replacing paper used previously.
The airport provides accommodations such as jet and aviation fuel, hangar space, aircraft tie-downs, courtesy cars, and a public terminal and pilot lounge. In 2020, the airport updated both airport courtesy cars, purchased a new tractor for their mower, and a Bobcat for additional snow removal.
And to top off all the airport’s accomplishments in 2020, the airport has decided to rename the airport from Hettinger Municipal Airport to JB Lindquist Regional Airport in honor of the long-time aviator and airport manager, JB Lindquist.
The JB Lindquist Regional Airport is congratulated for a tremendous year of accomplishments.