Sloulin Field International Airport was an airport serving Williston, a city in North Dakota. It was two miles north of downtown and was owned and operated by the city. Built in 1947, the airport faced expansion constraints, design issues, and the need for runway refurbishment. For these reasons, as well as the rise in air traffic amid the

North Dakota oil boom The North Dakota oil boom refers to the period of rapidly expanding oil extraction from the Bakken Formation in the state of North Dakota that lasted from the discovery of Parshall Oil Field in 2006, and peaked in 2012, but with substantially less g ...

, officials decided to build

Williston Basin International Airport Williston Basin International Airport is an airport serving Williston, a city in the U.S. state of North Dakota. It is located 9 nautical miles (17km) northwest of the city. Williston Basin Airport has two runways and a terminal building. I ...

. Sloulin Field Airport closed to the public on October 10, 2019. Delta Air Lines check-in counters at KISN, July 2015

History

The first airport to serve Williston, North Dakota, was east of the city near Little Muddy Creek. The environment was unsuitable, and operations shifted to a new airport in 1936. The site became too small, so Sloulin Field International Airport was built in 1947. ISN covered 740 acres (299 ha) of land. Sloulin Field Airport faced various problems as the city grew. The 2004 master plan noted limited room for expansion because of the surrounding terrain and buildings, design issues that conflicted with the

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...

's standards, and the need to refurbish the runway. Runway improvements had also been recommended in the 1993 master plan. A $4 million renovation project included the construction of a new terminal that opened in October 2006. When

Delta Air Lines Delta Air Lines, Inc., typically referred to as Delta, is one of the major airlines of the United States and a legacy carrier. One of the List of airlines by foundation date, world's oldest airlines in operation, Delta is headquartered in Atla ...

and

United Airlines United Airlines, Inc. (commonly referred to as United), is a major American airline headquartered at the Willis Tower in Chicago, Illinois.

announced plans to serve Williston in 2012, airport officials decided to add a

mobile home A mobile home (also known as a house trailer, park home, trailer, or trailer home) is a prefabricated structure, built in a factory on a permanently attached chassis before being transported to site (either by being towed or on a trailer). Us ...

trailer to provide additional capacity for the terminal. In light of the issues highlighted in the 2004 master plan and increased air service to Williston amid the

, plans either to renovate Sloulin Field Airport or to construct a new airport surfaced in 2011. Officials ultimately decided to build

because of cost considerations. Sloulin Field Airport has been decommissioned, and the land will be sold.

Infrastructure

Runway

The airport had two asphalt

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt concrete, as ...

s. Runway 11/29 was , and Runway 2/20 was .

Terminal

Sloulin Field Airport had a terminal with a mobile home trailer that provides extra seating capacity. The terminal had one gate and

vending machine A vending machine is an automated machine that provides items such as snacks, beverages, cigarettes, and lottery tickets to consumers after cash, a credit card, or other forms of payment are inserted into the machine or otherwise made. The fir ...

s for passengers.

Airlines and destinations

At the time of its closure, the airport had daily passenger service to

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

on Delta Connection and to

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

United Express United Express is the brand name for the regional branch of United Airlines, under which six individually owned regional airlines operate short- and medium-haul feeder flights. On October 1, 2010, UAL Corporation and Continental Airlines merged t ...

. The airlines together offered five flights per day to Sloulin Field. The airport saw eleven flights per day, including nonstop service to Houston, at the height of the oil boom.

Statistics

Sloulin Field International Airport had experienced great growth in air traffic amid the oil boom in the state. Passenger enplanements went from 27,860 in 2011 to a peak of 119,069 in 2014, a roughly 327% increase over three years. In 2015 the airport had 43,014 aircraft operations, average 118 per day: 82%

general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations with the exception of commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services ...

, 8%

air taxi An air taxi is a small commercial aircraft that makes short flights on demand. In 2001 air taxi operations were promoted in the United States by a NASA and aerospace industry study on the potential Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS) an ...

, 8% airline, 2% Air Cargo and <1% military. Forty-nine aircraft were then based at this airport: 86% single-engine, 10% multi-engine, and 4%

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

Top domestic destinations

References

External links

{{commons-inline Defunct airports in the United States Buildings and structures in Williams County, North Dakota Transportation in Williams County, North Dakota Williston, North Dakota Airports disestablished in 2019