Flights status: Momentum building for passenger service at Chico Regional Airport

CHICO — Matt McCurry has worked at the Chico Regional Airport for 3½ years and grew up seeing jets touch down and take off from the north side of the city. So, he finds it surprising when people see his work shirt and tell him they didn’t know Chico has an airport.

It’s an easy mistake to make. When it was known as Chico Municipal Airport, the facility had passenger flights arriving and departing regularly — at least as regularly as weather allowed at San Francisco International. Local air traffic now consists predominantly of private planes and firefighting aircraft, with the occasional arrival of military jets.

As McCurry points out to people, Chico has had an airport for the better part of a century. Soon, perhaps as quickly as a year if not two or three, it may have commercial flights again. The city is a hair’s width away from meeting its initial goal for a revenue guarantee fund, and it soon will renew talks with a Utah-based carrier.

Signs on the terminal building facing the tarmac indicate a route for passengers when commercial air travel returns to the Chico Regional Airport, as seen Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024, in Chico, California. (Evan Tuchinsky/Enterprise-Record)

A commemorative marker adorns a paneled wall inside the terminal building at the Chico Regional Airport on Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024, in Chico, California. (Evan Tuchinsky/Enterprise-Record)

Fuel trucks from Northgate Aviation, the fixed base operator at the Chico Regional Airport, park on the tarmac Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024, in Chico, California. (Evan Tuchinsky/Enterprise-Record)

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This comes against the backdrop of Sacramento International Airport facing a capacity issue and Redding Regional Airport recently adding flights to Denver. Chico is eying Los Angeles International Airport, which is undergoing expansion in anticipation of the 2028 Olympics.

“I’d love to see commercial back here to service everybody in town,” said McCurry, the airport’s field supervisor. “Chico State, Enloe, anyone who wants to go on vacation and enjoy their lives. So I’d like to see a service come in.”

As would higher-ups at city hall. Mayor Andrew Coolidge championed two allocations that his council colleagues approved — $500,00 toward the revenue guarantee fund and $300,000 toward facility upgrades. He plans on making the trip to Utah and reaching out to Sacramento to gauge whether SMF might support Chico’s bid as a way to alleviate congestion there.

Erik Gustafson, the Public Works director who oversees the airport, said the city has collected $1.435 million of the $1.5 million initially sought for the revenue guarantee fund. He and other officials have revised the goal to $2 million to match Redding’s amount for the Denver flights.

Once an airline agrees to Chico flights, Gustafson said the airport will need at least a year to ramp up, literally and figuratively.

Market conditions

The last passenger plane left Chico in December 2014. A lot has changed since then both in the city and the region.

The airport’s catchment area covers Butte County, Glenn County and part of Tehama County. Numbers from the last survey of travelers, from 2018, indicate 700 a day leave the area for air travel — 80% heading to SMF.

“We’re hoping to capture 20% of that 80%,” Gustafson said, “enough to fill a flight.” Airlines have discussed 50- and 70-passenger jets with Chico.

The city is finalizing a new catchment area study to update the numbers post-pandemic, when travel overall has increased.

Seeking support from another airport may seem counterintuitive, but Coolidge pointed to impacts that challenge Sacramento. In particular, he said SMF has a “parking crisis”; it’s building a new structure, but that’s years away, and now even the economy lots completely fill. Some days, the airport asks passengers to get rides rather than drive. That’s tricky for Chicoans and others this far away without shuttles, direct buses or trains.

“Sacramento continually gets further and further away,” Coolidge said, referring to time getting there. “Over the years, Highway 99 has added stoplights to various towns, and various towns have grown — slowing traffic down and making your trip longer to Sacramento Airport, which has become absolutely impacted.”

Chico, meanwhile, has its own demands. Coolidge noted that 2,800 Chico State students come from Southern California. CIC-to-LAX flights would serve them and their families — perhaps draw more students, as well. The mayor added that flights could make Chico a weekend getaway for Southlanders seeking fall colors, spring flowers and unique attractions.

Tom Bahr, Chico’s airport manager, is at a conference in Reno attended by other airports, airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration. Should networking there and meetings elsewhere bear fruit, Gustafson has a message for Chicoans about air service.

“When it comes, use it.”