St. George Regional Airport

St. George Regional Airport is a city-owned, public-use airport located five nautical miles (5.8 miles; 9.3 km) southeast of the central business district of St. George, a city in Washington County, Utah, United States.The current airport opened on January 13, 2011, and is a replacement for prior, smaller land-locked St. George Municipal Airport, located atop a mesa in the city, which was declared unsuitable for expansion the city needed for population growth. It is served by SkyWest Airlines on behalf of American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines. SkyWest, which is one of the largest regional airlines in the world, is also based in St. George.The former airport used SGU as the location identifier for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and International Air Transport Association (IATA). The new airport was assigned a transitional identifier DXZ by the FAA, but retained the IATA designation SGU. On December 15, 2011, the FAA returned SGU to use at the new airport.HistoryThe prospect of a new airport for the region has been around for many years. The old airport, on top of a mesa, is land-locked and has no room for expansion. The runway and terminal were too small for larger aircraft. With the rapid growth of the area and tourism increasing, the need for a new airport became vital. It was built about 6 miles southeast of downtown at the site of an abandoned airfield which had not seen air traffic since 1961 and most recently has been used for vehicle drag racing and radio controlled aircraft.