Southwest Michigan Regional Airport


Southwest Michigan Regional Airport is a public use airport located two nautical miles northeast of the central business district of Benton Harbor, a city in Berrien County, Michigan, United States. The airport is owned by the cities of Benton Harbor and St. Joseph, Michigan. It is included in the Federal Aviation Administration National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2017–2021, in which it is categorized as a regional general aviation facility.

Facilities and aircraft

Southwest Michigan Regional Airport covers an area of 485 acres at an elevation of 649 feet above mean sea level. It has three asphalt paved runways: 10/28 is 6,005 by 100 feet ; 14/32 is 3,661 by 100 feet ; 18/36 is 2,498 by 100 feet.
For the 12-month period ending December 31, 2010, the airport had 36,972 aircraft operations, an average of 101 per day: 98% general aviation and 2% air taxi. At that time there were 62 aircraft based at this airport: 81% single-engine, 11% multi-engine, 7% jet, and 2% ultralight.
The airport is staffed as follows:
Opened in 1973, the air traffic control tower was abandoned after a 1981 controller strike. It ceased operation and never re-opened. The air traffic control tower was demolished in the fall of 2013.

Transit

The airport is accessible by road from Territorial Road, and is close to Interstate 94 and I-94 Business Loop.

Air service

There is currently no commercial airline with scheduled passenger service at the airport. From 1960 to 2000, it was predominately serviced by airlines including North Central Airlines, Republic Airlines, Mississippi Valley Airlines, Air Wisconsin Airlines, Iowa Airways and Mesaba Airlines. Today, the airport is used primarily by general aviation and corporate clients.
It was most recently serviced from 1995 to 2000 by Mesaba Airlines, offering five daily flights to the Northwest Airlines hub at Detroit. But despite an intense local marketing campaign, the proximity of airports in Chicago, Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids, and South Bend siphoned business from BEH and service was discontinued.