Airport staff and commissioners spent a substantial portion of the Nov. 13 meeting on air‑service attraction, airline outreach and related infrastructure limits.

Marketing and air‑service staff said they met with 12 airlines at conferences this year and are maintaining ongoing conversations with carriers including American, Allegiant, Alaska, Avelo, Breeze, Delta, Frontier, JSX, Sun Country, SkyWest and United. The staff briefing noted that American is "considering the possibility of larger aircraft" for Flagstaff in 2026 between May and September, subject to airline planning cycles.

Local operational constraints were a running theme. Brian noted that Flagstaff's high elevation and summer density‑altitude conditions can restrict aircraft payloads and performance and that some regional aircraft types (CRJ variants and Embraer 170/175 families) offer different tradeoffs for performance and seat counts. He also warned that the TSA checkpoint and hold‑room capacity — roughly 200 passengers — limits how many and what size of aircraft can be on the ground simultaneously: "one 737 would fill the room," staff said, meaning simultaneous mainline operations would exceed passenger-holding capacity.

Revenue and demand context: staff reported October emplanements were up 4.4% over 2024, September up 7.7%, and year-to-date enplanements roughly +5.5%. Parking revenue was corrected after a reconciling-data fix; October parking receipts came in at $52,506 (up ~4.6%), with year-to-date parking revenue up about 13.6%.

Next steps and council interface: staff recommended tracking how parking fee changes (a City Council presentation is scheduled Dec. 2 with potential final action Dec. 16) affect demand and parking revenue. Commissioners were advised they may attend council meetings and use the public-comment process, but to avoid acting collectively on commission business without notice to comply with open‑meeting rules.

Why it matters: airline equipment decisions, terminal capacity and local infrastructure investments together determine whether Flagstaff can attract more frequent or larger aircraft. Staff concluded the airport should plan terminal and checkpoint capacity improvements in parallel with air‑service recruitment efforts.