There are several changes taking place at the Pocatello Regional Airport.

Airport Manager David Allen, who will be retiring in April, recently announced that demand has led SkyWest Airlines, operating as the Delta Connection to Salt Lake City, to add an afternoon flight to and from Pocatello. In addition, he says there’s been an increase in the number of people wanting to build private hangers in the area in recent months.

Allen says he’s ecstatic that SkyWest is expanding in the Pocatello market, by adding a fourth daily flight Sunday through Friday and a third on Saturdays beginning in March. Tickets will be available for purchase as early as Jan. 14.

“The new flights will connect passengers to 32 domestic cities on the 5 p.m. bank of departures from Salt Lake City, which is one of the most popular connecting banks,” Allen said in a news release. “Almost all of our top 15 destinations are available plus many others such as Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and Boston.”

Currently, the airport is running a maximum of three flights per day on SkyWest’s 50-seat CRJ 200 regional jets at 81 percent of capacity.

“At 81 percent, we’re pushing the boundaries and SkyWest is listening to us about a fourth flight,” Allen said. “SkyWest is very pleased with our growth.”

When Allen started managing the airport, SkyWest flights were reduced to two per day, which caused long layovers at the Salt Lake City airport, so many people chose to drive instead. Just two months before he arrived, the Horizon flights to Boise were also canceled.

“We struggled,” Allen said. “It’s only been in the last two years that we’ve seen a dramatic turnaround in growth.”

In March 2015, SkyWest granted the third flight and demand has since grown enough to warrant a fourth flight — the first step in a growth plan that will eventually include direct flights to Denver.

Aside from more demand for flights, there has also been an uptick in private hanger requests in recent months.

In his 10-plus years as the airport’s manager, Allen said there hasn’t been any new private hangers built. Yet, in the past six months, five requests to build private hangers have been received and ground has already been broken on the first one.

The private hangers aren’t being built by retirees either, but by business people who plan to live here. Allen speculated that the Northgate project and FBI expansion might be spurring some of the requests.

The growth at the airport has been exciting to those who have worked hard to keep it going over the years.

Originally built in 1942 as a World War II airport training base, the 3,400-acre complex was deeded to the city of Pocatello for $1 in 1949 with the requirement that it remain an operational airport. But keeping the airport’s doors open has not always been an easy venture for the city.

“We are not an aviation community here like some communities back East,” Allen said. “People back there love to fly. Our community hasn’t embraced that yet. This was a blue-collar town, and there weren’t a lot of disposable dollars for travel.”

But that has started to change.

Allen thinks there are many reasons why people should consider flying out of Pocatello rather than driving two and a half hours to the Salt Lake City airport: convenience, it frees up more working hours, free parking, short check-in lines and avoidance of tired drivers and dangerous weather.

Allen also noted that it can sometimes cost less to fly than drive. If the mark-up cost is less than $220 for a five-day round-trip flight, it can be cheaper to fly out of Pocatello because of the fees involved with wear and tear on vehicles, depreciation, gas, parking, etc.

Allen also said flights out of Pocatello can sometimes be half the cost of flying out of Idaho Falls and even cheaper than flying out of Salt Lake City directly. He said 25 to 30 percent of the airport’s travelers come from Idaho Falls or from farther north to save money.

Those are all reasons why Allen encourages people to “check Pocatello’s rates first.”

Though it is growing, the Pocatello airport is not yet self-sustaining. Still, Allen says the airport has a significant economic impact on Pocatello and the region.

In 2010, Allen said the taxes from businesses built on the 700-acre business park and the fees charged for private use and business use of the airport brought in more than $34 million in the form of services, jobs and goods that exchanged hands through the use of the airport. And he says that amount has likely gone up several million more in recent years.

Besides increasing the number of flights during his tenure, Allen has helped develop and oversee many other airport projects including the outside Kizuna Japanese Garden and its indoor kiosk. The Pocatello airport is one of only three airports in the United States that boasts a Japanese garden honoring its Japanese sister city, Iwamizawa.

Allen has also supervised the enlargement of the parking lot and a breezeway, the transformation of the media center, the renovation of the conference room and the large passenger boarding area addition.

But after more than a decade as the manager, Allen is planning to retire in April, which will lead to even more future changes at the airport.

Allen, who has been involved with aviation since he entered the Air Force at age 18, said he still plans to travel in the future, but by a completely different means. He and his partner, Susan, have bought a 42-foot sailboat, which they plan to practice sailing on this summer and then go “off-grid” and sail around the world for a few years.

Due to his work and being in the Air Force, Allen has lived in such places as Belgium, Greece, Korea and Alaska, so adventure is nothing new to him.

“I had nominal sailing experience five years ago when we started talking about this,” Allen said. “Since then, I have added a little bit of sailing experience and training. … The training is not as much as we’d like, but we can’t wait.”

Still, of all the places that he has lived and worked so far, Allen says Pocatello has been his favorite.

“I love the sense of community that is here,” Allen said. “I’ve been very active with the chamber and others in the community. There’s a lot of people in this community who give of themselves all the time and it’s been fun to be a part of that. I am also very sad to be leaving the eight other staff members that have made this airport run. They all support and help each other out no matter what job needs to be done.”