Grant County Airport (New Mexico)

Historical airline service

The Grant County Airport was dedicated on November 30, 1951, serving the communities of Silver City, Hurley, Lordsburg, and Deming, New Mexico, as well as smaller communities in the so-called "Mining District," including Arenas Valley, Fort Bayard, Central (now Santa Clara), Bayard, and Santa Rita. The next day, on December 1, 1951 Frontier Airlines began operating flights from the airport as a stop on their route from El Paso to Phoenix, which also included stops at Clifton, Safford, and Tucson, Arizona. Before the opening of the Grant County Airport, the airline was serving local airports in Deming, NM and Lordsburg, NM; however, service to those cities was then discontinued. By 1956 the route to Phoenix was modified to originate in Albuquerque rather than El Paso and service to Clifton and Safford was later discontinued which made for nonstop flights from Silver City to Tucson and Phoenix. At that time and on into the mid-1960s, the airline was flying the Douglas DC-3. Later, Frontier served the airport with larger Convair 340 prop aircraft followed by Convair 580 turboprops. Frontier's flights to Tucson and Phoenix were discontinued in 1974 and a small commuter carrier, Zia Airlines, began flights to Albuquerque with Cessna 402 and Handley Page Jetstream propjets in 1976. In the midst of growing into an all jet airline, Frontier ended their service in late 1979. Zia Airlines went out of business in early 1980 and Air Midwest began operating later that year under an Essential Air Service (EAS) contract with flights to Albuquerque using Swearingen Metroliner aircraft. Another commuter, Airways of New Mexico, operated flights to El Paso for a short time in 1980 as well. In 1985 the EAS contract was shifted from Air Midwest to Mesa Airlines which came to Silver City with service to Albuquerque using Beechcraft 99 and Beechcraft 1900D. Mesa's flights continued for 20 years until 2005 when the EAS contract was awarded to Great Lakes Airlines. Great Lakes started service with flights to Albuquerque, also using Beech 1900D's, but switched the flights to Phoenix in late 2012. Great Lakes ended all service in late 2014 and the EAS contract was then awarded to Boutique Air which began service in early 2015. Boutique provided flights to both Albuquerque and Phoenix using Pilatus PC-12 aircraft for four years until the EAS contract was then transferred to Advanced Air. Advanced Air began service in early 2019 with similar service to Albuquerque and Phoenix but uses a larger, multi engine, Beechcraft Super King Air model 350.^[4] Two other commuter airlines that served the Silver City to El Paso market for short periods were Aztec Airlines in 1966 and Turner Air in 1985.