Aviation View | April 2021

100 AVIATION VIEW APRIL 2021 AT A GLANCE ST. GEORGE REGIONAL AIRPORT WHAT: A city-owned, commercial and general aviation airport WHERE: St. George, Utah WEBSITE: www.flysgu.com IONAL AIRPORT TH I NGS ARE LOOK I NG UP T he St George Regional Airport in Washington County, Utah has had meteoric growth since it opened in 2011. Opening with 54 hangars and one runway, the first five years saw a growth to just about double the size. It was then that problems with the runway became apparent. Despite engineers’ best assurances, the blue clay underpinning the asphalt shifted, causing ripples in the runway. With no other choice, they shut down for four months to revamp the whole thing. That was last summer. “Yes, in 2019 we shut down the runway for four months to redo it,” explains Richard Stehmeier, Airport Manager, “and we were really worried about how it would affect us, but then we opened back up in September, and by October we were breaking every record at the airport. There were more passengers in that month than we ever had in an October up to that point. We went from basically shut down to almost 30,000 passengers in the next month. And it continued – we had record months in November, December, and it became an