Yeager airport doing well amongst pandemic

CHARLESTON, WV (WOWK) – The pandemic may be shutting down a lot of businesses, but Yeager Airport is doing better than expected.  

Staff members say they’re bringing in more revenue and several new projects might be in the works.

Yeager Airport has been weathering the COVID-19 storm. Revenue for the first half of the year is performing better than budgeted. It’s used $3.7 million of the $4.5 million budgeted.

 “We have the ability to get some new screening equipment here and eventually it’s going to be mandatory that we have it. With that being said, we have to widen the current checkpoint by six to eight feet,” Nick Keller, Yeager Airport said.

Along with new security measures, the airport also has several other potential projects in the works like a new rental car facility, a hotel and a flight school for Marshall University. Some of these projects may be funded through the $4 million from the Cares Act.

So far, only the airport has only used $692,000 of cares funding. That’s around 24%.  

Just as well as staff is doing with money, they are also doing well with trying to get everyone vaccinated for COVID-19.

“We have 44 employees that have received the vaccine or scheduled to receive the vaccine. So, about half the workforce has received the vaccine,” Keller said.

The nation’s airports have requested another $17 billion dollars in aid for the next year.