Northwest Florida Regional Airport
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Northwest_Florida_Regional_Airport".

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Northwest Florida Regional Airport
Eglin Air Force Base


USGS aerial photo as of 15 February 1999
IATA: VPS – ICAO: KVPS – FAA: VPS
Summary
Airport type Public / Military
Owner/Operator United States Air Force
Serves Fort Walton Beach
Location Valparaiso, Florida
Elevation AMSL 87 ft / 27 m
Coordinates 30°29′00″N 086°31′31″W / 30.483333, -86.52528
Website www.FlyVPS.com
Runways
Direction Length Surface
ft m
12/30 12,005 3,659 Asphalt
1/19 10,012 3,052 Asphalt
Statistics (2006)
Aircraft operations 126,060
Source: Federal Aviation Administration1

Northwest Florida Regional Airport (IATA: VPS, ICAO: KVPS, FAA LID: VPS) is an airport located within Eglin Air Force Base, near Valparaiso and Fort Walton Beach in Okaloosa County, Florida, United States. No private aircraft are permitted to leave out of or arrive at Northwest Florida Regional, so Destin-Fort Walton Beach Airport is used for non-commercial operations. The airport was formerly known as Okaloosa Regional Airport until its name was changed in September 2008.

Northwest Florida Regional Airport is served by eight airlines providing non-stop service to Dallas, Houston, Memphis, Atlanta, Tampa and Charlotte. In 2007 the total passengers that flew out of Northwest Florida Regional was over 800,000. There is a demand for more flights to and from Northwest Florida Regional Airport. As a result, the airport is expanding its terminal by adding additional gates. Airport officials hope to break ground in 2009.

Contents

History

Gates at the Northwest Florida Regional Airport.

1957: The Okaloosa County Air Terminal opened on Eglin Air Force Base in building 89 with 3 personnel (Airport Manager, Security and Admin Support. Southern Airways was the only air carrier. Passengers would enter the base through the TAC gate on the east side of the base in Valparaiso, thus the airport code of VPS was born.

1968: Southern Airways began flying four DC-9 aircraft daily out of VPS. Air New Orleans began operations with service to New Orleans.

March 13, 1975: The Okaloosa Air Terminal located on State Road 85 opened its doors. The 32000 sqft facility was constructed at a cost of $1.7 million. Financing for the entire facility was through federal, state, and local money. Federal grants totaled $472,000, state $80,000, Okaloosa County bond sale $1.1 million, and Southern Airways $190,000. First year enplaned passengers totaled 97,000 with Southern Airways as the sole airline with 12 departing flights daily.

November 2004: The current Northwest Florida Regional Airport opened its doors following a major expansion program including additional public parking and aircraft parking apron, a second parallel taxiway, landscaping and a new 110000 sqft passenger terminal.

January 2008: Broke ground on the Consolidated Rental Car Service Facility to be located on 22 acres east of the airport. This facility will have offices for all 5 rental car companies as well as rental car service facilities with hydraulic lifts, automated car washes, gas pumps and vacuum islands and a consolidated fuel farm for both aviation and unleaded gasoline. A cargo facility and new offices for airport maintenance will also be built to the east of the terminal and are included in the project.

Facilities and aircraft

Northwest Florida Regional Airport and Eglin AFB share two runways: 12/30 with a 12,005 x 300 ft (3,659 x 91 m) asphalt/concrete surface and 1/19 with a 10,012 x 300 ft (3,052 x 91 m) asphalt pavement. For the 12-month period ending March 31, 2006, the airport had 126,060 aircraft operations, an average of 345 per day: 71% military, 19% scheduled commercial, 8% general aviation and 2% air taxi.1

The airport has a 110,000ft² airport passenger terminal building with three second-level gates with passenger jet ways and three ground-level commuter gates with regional jet boarding bridges

Airlines and destinations

Northwest Airlines parked at Northwest Florida Regional Airport

References

  1. ^ a b FAA Airport Master Record for VPS (Form 5010 PDF), effective 2008-07-31.

External links
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