Clovis Municipal Airport


Clovis Municipal Airport is a city-owned, public-use airport located six nautical miles east of the central business district of Clovis, a city in Curry County, New Mexico, United States. The facility opened in April, 1959 and is mostly used for general aviation, but is also served by one commercial airline. Current scheduled passenger service is subsidized by the Essential Air Service program.
It is included in the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015, which categorized it as a general aviation airport.

Facilities and aircraft

Clovis Municipal Airport covers an area of 1,480 acres at an elevation of 4,216 feet above mean sea level. It has three runways, two of which have asphalt surfaces: 4/22 is 7,200 by 150 feet and 12/30 is 5,697 by 150 feet. It also has one turf runway designated 8/26 which measures 2,442 by 75 feet.
For the 12-month period ending February 28, 2019; the airport had 24,648 aircraft operations, an average of 68 per day: 85% general aviation, 7% military and 8% air taxi. At that time there were 56 aircraft based at this airport: 73% single-engine, 14% multi-engine, 11% jet, and 2% helicopter.

Airlines and destinations

Historical airline service

Clovis was a stop on the first coast to coast "air rail" service between Los Angeles and New York City which began in 1929. Transcontinental Air Transport used a Ford Trimotor aircraft to fly passengers between Los Angeles and Clovis with en route stops at Kingman and Winslow, AZ as well as Albuquerque, NM. At Clovis, passengers heading east would then transfer to and board an overnight train operated by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway to Waynoka, OK where they would connect to another TAT operated Ford Trimotor aircraft the next morning and continue their journey to Port Columbus, OH where they would transfer again for the final stage of the journey to New York City via the Pennsylvania Railroad. The same rail and flight services, transfers and connecting points were used by passengers heading west. In late-1930 the service had been modified to where the aircraft would fly the western portion of the service with a stop in Amarillo, TX rather than Clovis. Transcontinental Air Transport went on to merge with Western Air Express and form what would become Trans World Airlines.
In 1948 a new carrier, Pioneer Airlines, began serving Clovis with the airport being one of several stops on a route between Albuquerque and Dallas. The other stops included Santa Fe, Las Vegas, and Tucumcari, NM as well as Lubbock, Abilene, Mineral Wells, and Ft. Worth, TX. A second route was created between Amarillo and El Paso with stops at Clovis, Roswell, and Las Cruces, New Mexico. This route crossed at Clovis with the initial route between Albuquerque and Dallas so as to make Clovis a small hub where passengers were able to connect between the two routes. Initially the airline used 21-seat Douglas DC-3 aircraft but upgraded to the 36-seat Martin 2-0-2 in 1952.
In 1955 Pioneer was acquired by and merged into Continental Airlines which maintained the same route, minus some of the stops, and also upgraded its service with Convair 340 prop aircraft followed by the four-engine, British manufactured Vickers Viscount turboprop in 1959. According to the September 27, 1959 Continental Airlines system timetable, the Viscount was being operated on a routing of Dallas Love Field-Fort Worth -Abilene-Lubbock-Clovis-Santa Fe-Albuquerque. Initially, all airline service had been operated via the current Cannon Air Force Base and was then transferred to the present municipal airport which opened in April, 1959.
As Continental was growing into a major airline, they transferred all of their Clovis service as well as service to other smaller cities in New Mexico to Trans-Texas Airways in 1963. Trans-Texas again kept the same routing with flights to Albuquerque and Dallas originally reverting to DC-3 aircraft but later upgrading to Convair 240 prop aircraft followed by Convair 600 turboprops. TTa then changed its name to Texas International Airlines in 1969 and for a brief period during the late 1970s, TI introduced 85-seat Douglas DC-9-10 jet service to Clovis. This was the only time Clovis had jet service which was operated via the Cannon AFB airfield in order to accommodate the DC-9's. In 1978 Texas International reverted to using Convair-600's via the Clovis Municipal Airport with service only being flown to Albuquerque.
As Texas International was now growing into a larger all-jet airline, TI discontinued its flights in early 1979 and service was transferred to two smaller commuter airlines, Air Midwest and Crown Aviation. Crown had started service at Clovis two years prior with flights to Albuquerque and Lubbock but went out of business in 1980. Air Midwest used 17-seat Swearingen Metroliner propjets with flights to Albuquerque, Amarillo, and Wichita. Mesa Airlines began serving Clovis in 1985 using Beechcraft 99 followed by Beechcraft 1900 turboprop airliners on flights to Albuquerque. Air Midwest discontinued their service shortly afterwards. Mesa continued to serve the city for 20 years until 2005 when service was replaced by Great Lakes Aviation which operated flights to Albuquerque as well as a flight to Amarillo and Denver using Beechcraft 1900D turboprops. The flight to Amarillo was later dropped and all service was briefly shifted to a Clovis-Santa Fe-Denver route in 2012 before Great Lakes ended all flights on January 31, 2014. Clovis was without any airline service until July, 2014 when Boutique Air inaugurated three daily nonstop flights to Dallas/Ft. Worth using 8-seat Pilatus PC-12 aircraft via a federal Essential Air Service contract. In August, 2018, Boutique Air upgraded the aircraft used to multi-engine, 9-seat Beechcraft Super King Air model 350's. Boutique Air's EAS contract ended on May 1, 2020 at which time Key Lime Air dba Denver Air Connection began two daily flights to Denver using Fairchild Dornier 328Jet aircraft.

Statistics

RankCityAirport name & IATA codePassengers
1Dallas, TXDallas/Fort Worth International Airport5,570

Year20082009201020112012201320142015201620172018
Enplanements2,4192,0282,1652,0331,6941,3841,9524,7994,8545,0534,750
Change5.54%16.16%6.76%6.10%16.67%18.30%41.04%145.85%1.15%4.10%6.00%
AirlineGreat Lakes AirlinesGreat Lakes AirlinesGreat Lakes AirlinesGreat Lakes AirlinesGreat Lakes AirlinesGreat Lakes AirlinesBoutique AirBoutique AirBoutique AirBoutique AirBoutique Air
DestinationAlbuquerqueAlbuquerqueAlbuquerqueAlbuquerqueAlbuquerqueLiberal
----Pueblo		DallasDallasDallasDallasDallas