Short Lines, Free Parking: Why Wyoming Travelers Say They Prefer Smaller Airports

Name an airport and Cheyenne’s Charles Gross has probably been there: Frankfurt, Germany; Dubai; King Khalid International in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Shenzhen Bao’an International in China’s Gaungdong province.

Gross travels the globe building world-class factories and knows his way around just about any airport someone could name, from the largest hubs to smallest airfields. 

Those major airports are fine, Gross told Cowboy State Daily with a shrug. But he prefers small airports like those serving communities across Wyoming.

Not only are they a nicer way to travel in his opinion, but they’re also key to keeping commercial air service — and the jobs that come with it — in small communities.

Gross is part of a small but growing contingent of tiny airport fans who will go out of their way to avoid larger airports anytime they can.

“The beauty of small airports, other than getting your luggage in so quickly, is that you get to know all the people behind the counter,” he said. “And once you’re inside the airport, once you’re past the gate, you can relax.”

The faster that happens the better. 

For Gross, that’s the superpower tiny airports have over the fanciest airports in the world — gliding past TSA as quickly as possible.

“Having a long layover in Denver, I don’t really care about that,” he said, referencing a common reason people give for driving from Cheyenne to Denver only to then wait in an extremely long airport security line.

Since Gross is a 100,000-mile flyer, he gets free use of any United Airlines lounge in the world. 

In Denver, that means free food all day if he wants it, as well as access to showers and other amenities. 

That makes a long layover rather nice. Since he’s taking fewer calls because he’s traveling, it’s a great chance to catch up on everything. 

“My suitcase or my roll-on is my office,” he said. “And it’s actually great if I don’t have to drive to Denver and face all that traffic, which I used to do all the time.”

Free Parking, Less Worry

Parking at the Cheyenne Regional Airport is free, Gross added, and he’s never had any issues with anything being stolen there — unlike Denver.

“In Denver, they were stealing cars and cutting off their catalytic converters,” Gross said. “In Cheyenne, nobody’s car is getting vandalized or anything. It’s safe.”

Using the airport close to home also makes it easier to handle curveballs, which do happen from time to time, even to seasoned flyers.

Just a little over a year ago, he was asked to show his vaccination passport record for a trip he was taking to Riyadh.

That’s not something he’s typically asked to show. He thought he had it on his phone, but couldn’t find it when he was finally asked for it. 

It could have been a huge hangup had he been in Denver. But since it was Cheyenne Regional Airport, it was no big deal.

“(My home) is 6 miles from the Cheyenne airport,” he said. “So I ran home, got it, and was back in plenty of time. If I’d been in Denver, I’d have been hosed.”

Tiny Lines, Bigger Romance

For Laramie’s Brad Enzi, an aviation junkie as long he can remember, tiny airports are more about the romance, though he admits he also is a fan of the short lines at smaller airports.

“It’s just a lot more fun to go to an airport where you can go straight to your plane and you get to the end of the runway and you can go anywhere in the world,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “And when you get on and you look at the tiny little runway and the tinier planes, and you just think, ‘Holy smokes.' There’s some fun in that to me.”

It was his father, former U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi, who showed him how the tiniest airports are portals to the wider world. 

“You can see things, especially in a Cessna with the high wing, that you’d never see when you’re flying or when you’re driving,” he said. “You can just get a grip on the vastness of places. 

“In Alaska, it’s essentially a highway system in the skies. As you fly between these mountains, they tower over you.”

Seeing Wyoming that way is unforgettable, Enzi added. 

Somehow makes the “$100 hamburger” — a reference to the travel cost involved in getting to the burger — taste that much better.

“(Small airports) are usually a lot friendlier, too,” he added. “Like, if you go to a general aviation airport, and this is true around the country, the staff is happy to see you, happy to meet you. 

"But (smaller airports) go out of their way to make sure everyone feels happy and taken care of. It just tends to be a lot friendlier experience.”

Connecting Communities

For small airports, the stakes to winning dedicated fans are pretty high. 

The number of passengers is a huge deciding factor in how much service an airport can offer. 

If lots of people are driving to other cities like Billings, Salt Lake City, or Denver for their flights, that’s not going to help a tiny airport attract more flights.

But it’s not just important for the airport. It’s also vital to a community’s economic development, Riverton’s Kevin Kershisnik told Cowboy State Daily. 

He became involved in efforts to save rural air service in Fremont County after a delayed flight cost his company a million-dollar contract, resulting in layoffs.

Not long after that, Kershisnik learned that another company in the community was actually moving its headquarters because of the unreliable nature of the airport at that time. 

That prompted him to get involved in not just improving the local air service but saving it. It was a vital element of attracting and keeping economic developments in Riverton.

“This is an awesome service for us to have in a small rural community,” he said. “And it’s critical for us. We don’t have major interstates coming through Riverton. We don’t have rail coming through Riverton. Not many ships are coming into Riverton. 

“So, we have to maintain commercial air service, which is our gateway to the rest of the world.”

Since then, enplanements — a standardized measure of how many passengers are booking roundtrip flights — are at historic highs, Kershisnik said. 

Kershisnik has been there as a passenger many times since then, and he likes the sense of community it brings.

“You’ll see friends and colleagues and so forth,” he said. “You catch up on business, you catch up on different family events, sporting events, and things like that. Every time I fly out, there’s multiple people I know on the aircraft.”

Sometimes, there also are legislators on the flight, which becomes an unexpected opportunity.

“We’re able to talk about the upcoming legislative session and how we can best move things forward for the community because we’re both flying back to the community we love,” he said. “Those are nice things. Those are some of the intangibles that folks don’t think about.”

Neighbors In The Sky

Community is part of the reason Brad Ruckert, who operates the Downhome Discount stores in Powell and Cody, prefers tiny airports.

“The best part about small airports are the people working there,” he said. “It’s sort of like our store. It’s your neighbors. 

"I can walk into the TSA in Cody, and it’s my neighbors, it’s friends, it’s people I see throughout town, and they’re always happy and the lines always move through quick.”

He also loves that the airport’s ecosystem includes learn-to-fly lessons for his children. For $75, they get to go up in the cockpit and feel what it’s like to land.

“I don’t think they’d ever be able to do something like that at a large airport,” Ruckert said. 

Free parking and the short drive to home if he forgot something are the kinds of perks that adds a little extra icing on the cake.

“And the small airports are cleaner,” Ruckert added. “I’ve never had a cockroach run across my bag in a small airport like I have at O’Hare (in Chicago).”

For travelers like Ruckert, the tiny airport closest to home isn’t just the easy way to fly, it’s the best way to fly.

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.