Provo Airport asking Utah Legislature for $5.5 million to expand

PROVO, Utah — International flights could start flying out of the Provo Airport within the next couple of years.

The airport is asking the Utah Appropriations Committee for $5.5 million to expand. Deputy Mayor of Provo, Isaac Paxman, said last year’s contribution of $3 million helped the airport hit major milestones.

“Our analyst said that if we built the project that you (the committee) helped us build last time, we would hit the 1 million passenger mark in 2035,” he said. “We hit it last year.”

Additionally, Paxman said the two current airlines, Breeze Airways and Allegiant Airlines, want to add more flights, including international ones.

According to the Director of the Provo Airport, Brian Torgersen, it has already started working on the early stages of the expansion.

“We would expand to add three gates on the south end of the terminal,” he said. “Two of those gates would be international-compatible, but normally, (the) majority of the time would be used for domestic arrivals and departures.”

The end goal, according to Orem representative Val Peterson, is to expand the airport to about 10 gates. Currently, it only has four.

“With the demand that they’re seeing, with the amount of passengers they’ve had, we think that this is a very feasible and needed addition here in our state,” he said.

The airport had over 400,000 flyers in the first year of business and has continued to defy business expectations since then.

Related: SLC International Airport saw record number of passengers in 2023