Provo Airport to halt commercial flights Sept. 5-18 for runway upgrades
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- A diagram of expected runway construction at the Provo Airport set to happen in September.
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- Passengers make their way up a passenger ramp to board their Allegiant Air flight at the Provo Municipal Airport on Thursday, April 16, 2020.
Courtesy Provo City
A diagram of expected runway construction at the Provo Airport set to happen in September.
Travelers looking to get out of Provo using the airport need to pay close attention at the end of the summer. Commercial flights from both Allegiant and Breeze will be halted from Sept. 5-18 for runway repairs and upgrades. Private aircraft will still be able to fly in and out during the construction.
Nicole Martin, Provo’s information officer, said the work will be done to accommodate reconstruction of four connector taxiways adjacent to the main runway.
The North Taxiway Alpha Reconstruction project includes the complete reconstruction of approximately 5,000 feet of the northern portion of Taxiway Alpha, the main taxiway at the Provo Airport.
“The construction project which began on May 15 and scheduled to be completed in October has been strategically phased to minimize interruption to operations at the airport,” Martin said.
Commercial and general aviation flight operations will be largely unaffected during the entire construction process. However, Phase 4 of the project includes the reconstruction of four connector taxiways that are located within the runway safety area for Runway 13-31, requiring a full runway closure due to FAA safety regulations.
Isaac Hale, Daily Herald file photo
Passengers make their way up a passenger ramp to board their Allegiant Air flight at the Provo Municipal Airport on Thursday, April 16, 2020.
“The secondary runway, Runway 18-36 will remain open during the majority of the two-week closure allowing general aviation operations to continue at the airport,” Martin said. “The secondary runway is not certified for commercial operations.”
Normal operations are scheduled to return on Sept. 19. Both commercial airlines using the airport agreed to cooperate and Breeze never scheduled flights during that time, according to Ryne Williams, public information officer with the airline.
“Hypothetically we would have had 42 departures during that time, but we were notified early enough we never scheduled flights then,” Williams said.
September is a slower month for commercial flights as school is back in session and the Thanksgiving-through-Christmas season is months away. Thus, it was considered a good time to do the project.
“The Provo Airport closure is one we have known about for quite some time. We worked in conjunction with PVU to choose a time frame for the construction that is traditionally a low flying time in order to minimize the impact to our customers. As such, we had ample time to prepare and were able to adjust our schedule accordingly and did not have to cancel any flights,” said Rachel Christiansen, Allegiant Air communications manager.
