Rapid City Regional Airport continues to grow

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KEVN) - Rapid City Regional Airport saw 380,000 total passengers come through so far this year. That’s about 30,000 more than this time last year.

With the number of people using the airport growing, so does the need for the airport to expand.

Tuesday, the Rapid City Regional Airport board awarded Scull Construction the bid to start the expansion project. The first phase will include changing areas passengers do not normally see like the baggage sorting areas and loading bays, but also expanding the ticket counter as well as the TSA security area.

These changes should make the airport more efficient.

The project will ultimately be done in two phases, but due to the scope of the expansion had to be broken up.

”A lot of this is what we consider head house so it’s gonna be a lot of the mechanical space, a lot of the back of house development that’s there. It’s not until we get to project two down the way where we add gates that will be noticeable to the customers who use it,” said Patrick Dame, the executive director of Rapid City Regional Airport.

Dame says that this project should take about two years to complete, with phase two starting at the end of next year.

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