CHARLESTON, W.Va. — While addressing the airport’s board one month into fully taking over as Yeager Airport director, Nick Keller laid out a vision.
Ideas of how to achieve the vision of “To become the most important economic engine for the state through advances in aviation and education,” was discussed Wednesday during the airport’s monthly board meeting.
“How we get there is to create a positive customer experience,” Keller told MetroNews. “We want to have a facility that’s modern, updated, that looks nice. Yeager Airport is the first and last impression of the state of West Virginia for hundreds of thousands of people a year.”
The organizational vision was highlighted by nine bullet points including creating a positive customer experience, building a U.S. Customs & Border Protection facility, investing in employees, a runway safety extension project, investing in aviation education, increasing air service, growing the Capital Jet Center, increasing military operations, and improving facilities at Coonskin Park.
Keller said the new Customs building will be built next to the Capital Jet Center terminal. Plans for the building were announced in July for the $2 million and Keller expects it to open up in the summer of 2020.
In more of a long-term goal, Keller said he would like the airport to construct a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) standard 1,000 foot-long runway safety area at each end of the runway and achieve a runway length of 8,000 feet. The airport wants 10,000 feet of flat area.
The new area would go well with the general aviation roadway finished for the Marshall University School of Aviation coming to the facility. Keller said that will go hand-in-hand with the educational advancement of the aviation industry in the state.
To increase and improve air services at Yeager, the airport aims to attract a low-cost carrier and add services to New York, Florida, Dallas, and Houston, among other cities. The airport had a service to LaGuardia seven years ago.
Overall, the airport has a goal of 225,000 enplanements within three years. Yeager Airport topped out at 317,000 enplanements in 2005, according to Keller.
Through all of these goals, Keller said the past month has been establishing a path for them with employees during his first few weeks on the job.
“In the last month, we’ve met with almost all of the employees in a town hall setting to go over the vision of the airport,” Keller said. “We went over the values that we expect from our employees and what they should expect from us, and also talk about how we are going to get there and how we are going to achieve the vision of the future.”
Keller was selected as the next Yeager Airport Director on September 18 at the last board meeting.