Expansion
The airport officially opened a planned runway extension on May 3, 2012, thus increasing the length from 6,304 ft. to 8,004 ft. It is hoped that the extended runway will help to attract new airlines and/or new destinations to be served by existing carriers.
Allegiant Air has also expanded air service between Las Vegas and Santa Maria with four roundtrip flights per week. In addition, in a major announcement, Allegiant unveiled new Saturday-only service from Santa Maria to Honolulu, Hawaii, which began on November 17, 2012. Allegiant currently operates McDonnell Douglas MD-80 series jetliners on the nonstop route to Las Vegas and Boeing 757-200 jetliners on the new nonstop service to Honolulu.
In addition, airport officials opened a new, approximately 4,000-square-foot (370 m2) baggage claim facility in 2007. It is one of the first airports on the Central Coast to use a state of the art baggage carousel (on a smaller scale when compared with larger airports) to deliver luggage to passengers. With regard to the runway extension project, the distance involved with regard to the new nonstop service to Honolulu would not be possible with the aircraft being used without the longer runway.
Other enhancements include a new passenger terminal holding room that was opened February 2008. The old area was able to accommodate only 30 passengers. In order to handle the larger number of passengers for the Allegiant Air jet flights, the new holding room is designed to accommodate 200 passengers and also has enough additional room for a new cafe.
Besides the current and planned Allegiant jet service, SkyWest Airlines operating as United Express currently flies Embraer EMB-120 "Brasilia" twin turboprop aircraft nonstop to Los Angeles.
The extended primary runway at Santa Maria is paved to 8,004 feet, thus providing the airport with the longest commercial runway between Los Angeles and San Francisco on the central coast of California (Bakersfield's primary runway at Meadows Field Airport located inland in the Central Valley (10855 x 150 ft.) as well as nearby Vandenberg AFB's military runway (15000 x 200 ft.) are longer).
Read more about this topic: Santa Maria Public Airport
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