Vernal Regional Airport

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Vernal Regional Airport is a mile southeast of Vernal, in Uintah County, Utah. It is owned by the city and county and sees one airline, subsidized by the Essential Air Service program.Federal Aviation Administration records say the airport had 5,474 passenger boardings (enplanements) in calendar year 2008, 3,805 in 2009 and 4,461 in 2010. The National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015 categorized it as a non-primary commercial service airport (between 2,500 and 10,000 enplanements per year).HistoryThe original Frontier Airlines (1950-1986) served Vernal for over 30 years. In 1950, Frontier was operating Douglas DC-3 flights from the airport with nonstop service to Salt Lake City and Rock Springs as well as direct, no change of plane service to Denver, Billings, Casper, Laramie and Cheyenne. By 1967, Frontier was serving Vernal with Convair 580 turboprops with nonstop flights to Salt Lake City and direct flights to Denver. At this same time, Frontier was operating a Convair 580 "milk run" flight with a routing of Salt Lake City-Vernal-Moab-Grand Junction-Farmington-Gallup-Albuquerque-Silver City-Tucson-Phoenix. Frontier was still serving Vernal during the late 1970s and early 1980s with Convair 580 flights nonstop to Salt Lake City and direct to Denver; however, as Frontier then began to transition to an all-jet fleet, service to Vernal had been discontinued by 1982. Prior to Frontier's service, a Challenger Airlines 1948 route map depicted Vernal as a proposed destination with service to Salt Lake City. In 1950, Challenger merged with Arizona Airways and Monarch Airlines to form Frontier Airlines which then in turn began service that year to Vernal.