St. George Airport Looking to Expand to Los Angeles

With growth in St. George and surrounding areas comes a growth in its travel industry as well, specifically St. George’s regional airport. So far, flights to and from St. George can be made to Salt Lake City, Denver, and as of last year, Phoenix. The newest flight the city is pushing to make is a daily flight to Los Angeles – more specifically, a 50 passenger flight that would depart in the morning and return in the evening, so that passengers flying for business could return on the same business day.

A spokesperson from SkyWest, Marissa Snow, hasn’t confirmed a St. George to Los Angeles flight, but did state that the St. George airport was making good growth. Under this proposed agreement, however, flights would need to start before September 6, 2017. Local governments have been pushing for this flight to expand St. George travel horizons. This subsidy agreement would run until February of 2019, and officials have agreed to split the possible startup cost losses of $450,000.

In 2015, as Utah’s third busiest airport (behind Salt Lake City and Provo), the airport was renamed from a “municipal” airport to a “regional” airport. After the airport was moved from atop the Black Hill (the mesa that sits in the center of St. George) to a more spacious location on the southeast edge of St. George for safety reasons and to funnel in more traffic. This new 1,204 acre airport was opened in 2011 and was a $160 million project, the largest in St. George to date. Currently, the only commercial airline that flies to and from St. George is SkyWest Airlines, on behalf of Delta Airlines and United Airlines.

The airport serves as a hub for travelers coming to national parks in the Southern Utah region like Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park. Zion alone in 2016 received over 4 million visitors, and that number continues to steadily rise by a few hundred thousand visitors every year, even passing Yellowstone National Park in the number of annual visitors in 2016. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the St. George Airport had about 59,000 fliers, which was an 8.7% increase from 2013, and growth has continued since then. A new flight to Los Angeles would mean even more fliers shuffling through the St. George Airport, leading to more growth and opportunities for the region.

An Enterprise car rental location is available at the airport. St. George also offers multiple shuttle services to and from Salt Lake City, Orem, Las Vegas, Cedar City, Mesquite, and Zion National Park, to name a few, making it easy to travel around the region from the airport. Both shuttle services (St. George Express and St. George Shuttle) offer free wifi, charging stations, and bottled water on their trips to make your trip as comfortable as possible.

Click here to visit the St. George Regional Airport (SGU) website.