The airport itself is absolutely critical to the regions economic growth. While it's current growth has been impressive and we now have more direct routes than ever before, we need to continue to grow the airport and do everything possible to get new routes and help drive down the price of airline fares. The airport is very close at the moment to landing some additional direct flights (Seattle/Dallas/Atlanta). Perhaps we could establish a fund that the business community could contribute to in order to lure more airlines here. As the passenger growth continues, we need to hook the airport up to I-29 directly, instead of forcing folks to go through downtown and past the stinky NDSU agricultural plots (easy folks I'm an NDSU grad).

The airport currently has a master plan already established. Everything should be done to ensure that the airports master plan is executed in the next 20 years to ensure we continue to be competitive against other airports in the region (GFK).

The airport build needs to be expanded so gates move outwards from the building to the north to ensure ease of adding gates in the future and minimizing downtown and affects on existing gates/airlines/passengers. The airport should also eventually look at adding a parking ramp with a hotel connected to the main terminal building.

Finally, I think we are going to eventually see taller buildings downtown, so we should not do anything more at the airport to limit the height of buildings in the downtown area, or close to the NDSU campus (the NDSU Research buildings were planned to be taller, but were limited due to proximity to the airport).