Runaway Runways

Waiting for a JetBlue direct flight to Bozeman, Montana, a Boston gate clerk was overheard discussing luggage challenges on the new winter service.

The airline had four ski towns on the itinerary: Denver, Salt Lake, Hayden in Idaho, and Bozeman. Three of those flights averaged 30 pairs of skis per plane. The clerk had just looked at the manifest for the Bozeman December 30 departure. The Airbus A-320 had 130 passengers and 96 sets of skis.

Nonstop flights from big East Coast cities are just one indicator of the Greater Yellowstone region’s rising popularity as a tourism target. Last fall, JetBlue opened inexpensive connections from New York as well as Boston, and plans to add its Mint-class lie-back seats to some planes in February. United Airlines added winter service direct to Washington, D.C., and Alaska Airlines will add a second daily nonstop to Portland, Oregon in May.

“We’re seeing some of those markets where they’re expanding service into more days of the week or longer seasons,” said Brian Sprenger, Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport chief executive officer. “There’s been a lot of competitive response, particularly on the East Coast this year. That’s partly in response to the successes of the past year. We had a record summer, with double-digit growth. So the airlines look to see if there was unmet demand.”

And the coming summer already looks good, if you’re counting on tourists for your bankroll. The Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research at the University of Montana has already received some survey results from tourist businesses for 2025, and the forecasts lean positive.

“We found 87 percent expect customer numbers to stay the same or grow,” said Rachel Shouse, science communications director for ITRR in Missoula. After crashing in the pandemic year of 2020, airline passenger numbers have been steadily climbing across the state. 2024’s 3.1 million deboardings was 9.85 percent higher than 2023’s, and 30 percent above the 2021 figure.

Interestingly, 2019 and 2021 were almost identical for airline traffic, each logging about 2.3 million deboardings. The lockdown year of 2020 was barely half that, at 1.2 million.

The Covid pandemic drove a nationwide trend of outdoor recreation activity, which almost certainly benefited Montana. For better or worse, locals say, the popular television show Yellowstone got credit for goosing the market as well, as it drew in more than 10 million viewers with Big Sky Country scenery and horse operatics.

A 2022 study by the Bureau of Business and Economic Research in Missoula found Yellowstone supported 527 jobs, $25.3 million in personal income and $10.4 million in state tax and non-tax revenue. A deeper look at that data concluded that about 2.1 million visitors considered the show a driving force in their decision to come to Montana, where they spent $730.1 million.

Lead actor Kevin Costner has left the show, and a sixth season remains in Hollywood limbo. Montana and the Greater Yellowstone region have lots of other promotional tricks to play, however. It’s a regular in annual places-to-go lists. The New York Times’ influential 52 Places to Go list in 2024 featured Craters of the Moon, Idaho in 2024 and the American Prairie buffalo reserve in 2023. The Golden Triangle around Big Sandy made the list in 2021, as did all of Alberta in the year everyone was shedding pandemic-inflicted cabin fever. Glacier National Park made No. 52 in 2020, although few took it up during the Covid lockdown.

The majority of the tourist traffic still comes by automobile, according to Yellowstone Country Montana Executive Director Robin Hoover. The expanded airline service also reflects local needs.

“I just flew a direct flight from Bozeman to New York City for a conference,” Hoover said. “It was lovely to go right out my back door. We as residents benefit from this too.”

At the same time, the Gallatin Valley and surrounding commercial hubs have seen a surge in hotel and lodging construction, Hoover said. That always raises the tension of over-building, or building too slow to meet demand. At least in the short term, Hoover said the five-county region she markets “won’t see a correction year or fall-off of visitation.”

Adding convenience and affordability for travelers helps the extensive tourist-based economy in Greater Yellowstone, said Susi Huelsmeyer-Sinay, owner of Yellowstone Llamas guide service in Livingston. Past clients had dealt with the extra expense of flying into Billings and then either entering Yellowstone National Park from a side they didn’t prefer, or having to drive to Livingston or Bozeman to use the more popular entries of Mammoth and West Yellowstone.

“If [additional airline service] makes it easier for those folks who’d like to experience our region, I’d welcome it,” Huelsmeyer-Sinay said. “But it’s always been a double-edged sword. With Yellowstone getting so many visitors, it threatens the integrity and balance in the park, as far as the road system, and impact on the wildlife. That really is a concern we are thinking about and wondering what the park will do in finding better ways to channel people into the park.”

Despite Montana’s northern climate, winter quarter is typically its slowest tourist season, according to the Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research. The ski crowd made up about 11 percent of the tourist market, compared to 15 percent who came in fall, 26 percent who came in spring and the remaining 48 percent who chose summer quarter.

Although Yellowstone draws bigger crowds, more tourists surveyed say Glacier National Park is their primary attraction when coming to Montana (24 percent compared to 18 percent). The jet-set boost echoes on that side of the state too, where Missoula is preparing to open a $50 million expansion to its terminal this spring to absorb its own flurry of new direct flights and airline service.

“Glacier Park is switching stuff up with their vehicle registration, so we’ll wait and see if that impacts visitation,” Shouse said. Yellowstone has yet to impose vehicle reservations or entry permits like Glacier has, although both require general entry fees for all visitors.

That probably won’t have much impact on air traffic, though. In Bozeman, both general and private jets are scurrying around its airport. The vacation vortex of late June to late August looms on the calendar.

“We’re looking at near 10 percent growth for the summer,” Sprenger said. “The eastern time zone is particularly strong this coming summer. We’re expecting over 40 weekly flights from the eastern time zone over the peak weeks of the summer. That’s up from about 30 a week last year.”