Rapid City Regional Airport, in the southwest corner of South Dakota, is the tourist gateway to Mt. Rushmore and the Black Hills. Although the airport is quite slow, a $20,000,000+ terminal upgrade project was completed in 2012.
Airport traffic peaked in the early 1990’s, at 70,000 annual operations (landings and takeoffs). It has steadily declined since, and since 2007 has held steady with an an annual average of 40,000 operations. For 2012, roughly 16,000 of the operations were commercial passenger flights.
KRAP Rapid City Regional Airport
(1,655 acres) Rapid City, SD
Four Nearby Instrument Airports:
[KRCA] 6 N ; [49B] 26 NW ; [KSPF] 41 NW ;
[KHSR] 43 S ;(ave. distance: 29 nm)
Total Based Aircraft: 111
(70 single-props, 31 multi-props, 1 gliders & ultralights)
(8 jets, 1 helicopter)
Operations & ATC:
(ave. 120 ops/day … with 284,126 enplanements in 2012)
16hr Contract tower
FAA compiles ATADS data for this facility. Airport operations in 2012 were DOWN 9% vs. 2007 operations, and DOWN 37% from the peak year (1992).
KRAP search (aiR) METAR AIRNAV WIKI
FlightAware.com FlightStats.com FlightRadar24.com
Airport Funding:
Four-year average AIP funding: $3,592,085 per year. Last AIP was Grant Sequence #44: $3,460,000 for “Rehabilitate Runway 05/23, [Crack seal/Rejuvenator] Rehabilitate Runway 14/32 [Phase 1], Wildlife Hazard Assessments”
— Average AIP Subsidy is $82 per operation.