By BECKY KISER
Hays Post

Passenger boardings at the Hays Regional Airport last year may have exceeded 10,000 after all, and that would be very good news for the city.

“We were very, very close,” Asst. City Manager Jacob Wood said, “so there are some additional things we’re taking a look at.”

That “very, very close” number was just 169 short of the 10,000 mark, according to Airport Manager Ovid Seifers.

“We think we made it, although it’s not official yet,” Seifers said Tuesday morning. “It appears that we did cross it (the 10,000 threshold).”

If so, the city of Hays would be awarded another $850,000 grant from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for airport improvements to go with the $150,000 in annual FAA funding.

Seifers thinks the city will know the final numbers within a week to 10 days.

“We’ve got one more tentative report, more as a cushion than to get us over, and then we’ll know for sure.”

The boarding reports come from two sources, SkyWest, the airport’s Essential Air Service (EAS) provider with the “lion’s share by far.” Also counted are boardings with charter flights with a Part 135 Operator, an aircraft that is hired on demand for transport. Private aircraft are not included.

The airport’s numbers will be submitted to the FAA, which will publish the final numbers for 2017 on Oct. 1, 2018.

“However, we will know shortly where we’re at exactly,” Seifers said. “There’s very little change after the initial report in January. It’s minimal.”

“We were off 169 passengers, and that number reduced and reduced. Now, all the numbers indicate we are over.”

The Hays Regional Airport last reached 10,000 boardings in 2011 and 2012.  In order to hit the mark of 10,000 passengers a year, an average of 833 people need to fly out of Hays each month.

Previous FAA million dollar grants have been used to repair the airport’s main runway and make improvements to the terminal.