Rock Springs Sweetwater County Airport is one of the best airports in the country, according to travelmath.com. The airport ranked 37th out of 322 airports nationwide.
The folks at travelmath.com considered six categories in their rankings: percentage of cancelled flights, percentage of delays, average flight delay, taxi time, average fare, and TSA claims. Data was gathered from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics from January 1st to August 31st of 2015.
Airport Manager Devon Brubaker says a recent change at the airport played a role in the high ranking.
“On February 1st of 2015, we upgraded to 50-seat regional jet aircrafts on United Airlines, and they are much more reliable than the aircrafts that previously served the airport,” said Brubaker. “We just received statistics—and also included in this report—show that from February 1st through December 31st of last year we had just over 2 percent, 2.1 percent, of our flights cancelled, which is a really good number.”
Brubaker said the new planes have less down time for maintenance, have the ability to make up more time in the air if a flight is delayed, and are more fuel efficient. He said the airport spends less money on fuel per seat than they did before, which helps in managing fares.
The highest ranked Wyoming airport on the list is Casper/Natrona County International at 29th. Other Wyoming airports on the list include Gillette Campbell County (32nd), Laramie Regional (35th), Jackson Hole (152nd), and Yellowstone Regional in Cody (137th).
“As you can see in the rankings, there’s a lot of smaller airports including several in the state of Wyoming, and a lot of it has to do with our reliable service that’s provided by SkyWest Airlines,” said Brubaker.
Brubaker said smaller airlines were able to take high rankings because they don’t have to worry about gate delays or taxiing for miles to get to a runway. He said less passengers also means less TSA complaints.
The highest ranked airport on the list is Canyonlands Field Airport in Grand County, Utah. The lowest ranked airport was Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey.