Kootenai County commissioners voted this week to approve an updated fee schedule for the Coeur d’Alene Airport.

“It’s been a while since there was an actual deep dive into all the fees at the airport,” Airport Director Gaston Patterson told county commissioners during a meeting last week. “There’s a lot of fees that haven’t been utilized just because they don’t apply to the way we do business at the airport. There’s a lot of fees that were outdated.” 

The Airport Advisory Board created a subcommittee to examine the preexisting fee schedule to ensure it is fair and equitable for all airport users. Fees should also reflect the services provided at the airport, Patterson said. 

“We never want to charge too much, but we need to make sure we’re covering the type of business that we run out there,” he said. 

Because some of the proposed fee increases would exceed 5%, a public hearing was necessary. During the Tuesday hearing, no community members spoke in favor of or against the proposed changes to the fee schedule. 

Changes to the schedule include an increase to the fee for aircraft rescue and firefighting standby during events, from $250 for the first two hours and $150 per hour after that to $400 for the first two hours and $200 per hour after that. 

Hourly staff costs also changed, increasing from $90 per hour to $100 per hour for management and decreasing from $65 per hour to $60 per hour for administration. Rather than $65 per hour for operations staff, the schedule now calls for $60 per hour for operations and $75 per hour for an operations supervisor. The fee schedule also includes a new charge of $75 per hour for a heavy equipment mechanic. 

In his update to commissioners about airport operations last week, Patterson said the airport recently completed and passed its annual safety inspection with the Federal Aviation Administration. 

“We had plenty of compliments from the FAA as far as the standard we keep our airport maintained to,” he said. “They’re very proud to have us in the region.” 

This spring, Patterson said, construction will begin on a public viewing area above North Ramsey Road, near Croffoot Park. The Coeur d’Alene Airport Association is working with public donations to build a picnic area. 

“People can go eat lunch, bring the kids, watch the airplanes and be in a safe area,” Patterson said. “I’m excited to get that going.” 

Patterson said rough grading on a grass runway parallel to Runway 2 will also begin soon. The airport aims to have the runway graded in the spring and summer, at which point it will be all dirt, and hydroseeded by winter. 

“Come next summer, it’ll be completely grass and ready to use,” he said.