The six general aviation airports operated by Minnesota's Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) performed 352,195 operations in 2021, an increase of eight per cent collectively, or 26,151 more take offs and landings compared to 2020.

“The strong demand for our general aviation system did not wane over the past year,” says CEO Brian Ryks. “Overall it has seen a double-digit growth in operations from 2019 to 2021, and the total number of aircraft based at our six reliever airports has held steady at more than 1,300. The amount of flight training occurring at our airports is very promising as airlines look to backfill large numbers of vacancies due to pilot retirements and focus on continued growth in demand.”

The MAC's general aviation airports are referred to as reliever airports within the Twin Cities metropolitan area because they relieve congestion that would otherwise impact Minneapolis-Saint Paul International airport, which itself saw 303,850 total operations in 2021, a 24 per cent increase over 2020.

Despite the pandemic, in 2021 MAC reliever airports continued to build on the momentum from the previous year when there was two per cent growth over 2019 activity levels.

“We have seen a resurgence in private business travel and in leisure and educational flights across our system of reliever airports during the past year,” says director of reliever airports Joe Harris. “In 2021, corporations began flying their business jets more often, and the demand for flight training programmes has been off the charts. We expect these trends to continue into 2022 as more workers return to the office and pilots continue training at one of the many flight schools.”

St Paul Downtown airport and Airlake airport in Minnesota saw the largest increases in operations last year. Take offs and landings at St Paul's, which serves more corporate activity than other reliever airports, increased by 29.8 per cent, or more than 9,000 additional operations, over 2020. At Airlake, which primarily serves leisure flying and flight training, activity increased by 15.8 per cent, or nearly 5,000 more operations.

The only reliever airport to see a fall in operations was Crystal airport, down 4.2 per cent with 1,600 fewer movements.

Flying Cloud, Lake Elmo and Anoka County-Blaine airports each saw increases of between five to ten per cent.

Continued investments are planned for 2022. Major improvements continue at Lake Elmo airport to complete the relocation and extension of Runway 14-32, which will be paved later this year. The new runway will span 3,500 ft and will allow the existing runway to be converted to taxiway. New lighting, signage and other airfield safety improvements are also coming.

The MAC's reliever airport system generates an estimated $756 million a year for the area economy and supports more than 3,600 jobs.