Williston Basin International Airport is an

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface ...

serving Williston, a city in the U.S. state of

North Dakota North Dakota () is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the Native Americans in the United States, indigenous Dakota people, Dakota Sioux. North Dakota is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north a ...

. It is located 9 nautical miles (17km) northwest of the city. Williston Basin Airport has two runways and a terminal building. It was built to replace

Sloulin Field International Airport 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 ...

, which previously served Williston and had experienced difficulty dealing with the increase in air traffic to Williston 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 ...

. The airport opened to the public on October 10, 2019.

History

The airport previously serving Williston was

. Sloulin Field Airport dealt with design concerns, constraints on expansion, and the need for runway works. In addition, the airport had difficulty coping with a significant rise in air traffic amid the

. In 2011, officials began to consider either making renovations to Sloulin Field or building a new airport. The cost of refurbishments was less than that of constructing a new airport; however, officials determined that building a new airport was the cheaper option. Not having to limit air service to Williston during construction at Sloulin Field would save revenue, and the city would gain from decommissioning the old airport and selling the land. The total cost of the project was $240 million, which was paid by the FAA, the state of

, and the city of Williston. A

groundbreaking Groundbreaking, also known as cutting, sod-cutting, turning the first sod, or a sod-turning ceremony, is a traditional ceremony in many cultures that celebrates the first day of construction for a building or other project. Such ceremonies are o ...

ceremony took place on October 10, 2016, with several members of the state government in attendance. Procedural and weather-related problems delayed the start of construction to mid-2017. The airport opened to the public on October 10, 2019, with short-haul service to Minneapolis/St. Paul by Delta Connection and Denver by

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 ...

. Shortly after the airport's opening, both carriers began using larger regional jets accommodating up to 76 passengers on some flights as compared to smaller 50-seat planes used previously in Williston.

Infrastructure

The airport opened with one runway, 14/32, with dimensions of . A crosswind runway, 4/22, which measures , was opened on November 5, 2020 and is mainly intended for use by smaller aircraft. The terminal occupies and has four gates, three of which have

jet bridge A jet bridge (also termed jetway, jetwalk, airgate, gangway, aerobridge/airbridge, skybridge, finger, airtube, expedited suspended passenger entry system (E-SPES), or its official industry name passenger boarding bridge (PBB)) is an enclosed, ...

s. It can handle up to 350,000 passengers annually. In June 2020, there were 49 aircraft based at this airport: 42 single-

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power gen ...

, 5 multi-engine, and 2

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 ...

. Currently, the FAA does not have any published aircraft operations data for this airport.

Access

Williston Basin International Airport is located about northwest of Williston. A road was built to connect the airport to the

U.S. Route 85 U.S. Route 85 (US 85) is a north–south United States Highway that travels in the Mountain and Northern Plains states of the United States. The southern terminus of the highway is at the Mexican border in El Paso, Texas, connecting wi ...

truck bypass.

Airlines and destinations

Passenger

Delta Connection uses CRJ200s operated by

SkyWest Airlines SkyWest Airlines is an American regional airline headquartered in St. George, Utah, United States. SkyWest is paid to staff, operate and maintain aircraft used on flights that are scheduled, marketed and sold by a partner mainline airline. The ...

to Minneapolis. Sun Country Airlines uses Boeing 737-800s to Las Vegas. United Express uses CRJ200s operated by

to Denver.

Cargo

Statistics

Carrier shares

Top destinations

References

External links

* * {{Williston, North Dakota Airports in North Dakota Buildings and structures in Williams County, North Dakota Transportation in Williams County, North Dakota Williston, North Dakota Airports established in 2019