Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport recently completed two new projects. The airport's new market and bagging system are said to improve efficiency and visitor satisfaction.
Airport CEO Brian Sprenger says the projects were fueled by more travelers.
"Overall, the project cost was about $23 million, and we’re very happy to have it complete and ready for winter," Sprenger says.
"When we saw the lines for food and beverage it became really evident that that was where the solution was needed and so that’s why we focused on the market in that space," he adds. "And we’ve grown substantially. We were handling about 300,000 departing passengers, now we’re handling over 1.2 million. And of course, with every one of those passengers, there’s also more than likely baggage."
The new baggage system is sophisticated and complex, making it the most electronically advanced upgrade in the airport's history.
Sprenger says, "This new system, we can divert bags over to other explosive detection machines. We can divert it to different locations for baggage delivery for the airlines. So, we have a lot of capabilities that we didn’t have before".
Despite operating on a smaller scale, Bozeman’s new baggage system is comparable to that of Denver and Salt Lake City.
"On average, we handle about four to six thousand passengers per day, but we can actually see closer to 10,000 bags on a peak day in the summer," Sprenger says. "So this new system is going to be able to handle that in a much more efficient and much more thorough way and very conducive for the airline operations as well as TSA".
Both the market and baggage system are up and running, just in time for the holiday season.
