The Cottonwood Community Awareness Group hosted a presentation by Cottonwood Municipal Airport manager Jeff Tripp on Thursday, April 4.
Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airport is the 10th-busiest in the nation for commercial service with about 455,000 takeoffs and landings annually, while Cottonwood Municipal is around the 350th-busiest airport for operations. The airport had about 18,000 operations in 2018 and 50,000 operations in 2023.
As part of his presentation, Tripp said that he is often asked why the traffic has increased significantly, and said that he attributes it to increasing enrollment at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, which had fewer than 500 students in their flight program in 2018 but expect to have 1,050 enrolled this fall. He cited an estimate by the university that about 10% of their operations were performed at Cottonwood in 2023 and 2024, or about 30,000 takeoffs and landings, with students flying roughly 65,000 hours in 2023.
Runway usage by Embry-Riddle students is determined by availability and Cottonwood is the closest comparable airport to Prescott. Sedona Airport is rarely used except by advanced students, and Tripp said Sedona is one of the trickiest airports in the country. About 5% to 6% of Embry-Riddle operations are in Seligman, Bagdad and Williams.
The university’s board voted to approve funding to create an auxiliary airstrip north of Paulden on March 29 and Tripp said that they are also looking at increasing their use of simulators to reduce the number of hours flown by students.
No Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University officials attended the meeting.
In 2018, the city of Cottonwood reportedly began getting an above average number of complaints regarding aircraft noise, Tripp said, and established a committee to help develop a solution to the public perception problem. The Cottonwood Airport Commission approved an action plan in 2019 and the airport has been working to complete the objectives outlined in this plan, which include reducing noise over residential areas and preventing future incompatible growth around the airport.
The airport’s noise abatement practices, which were adopted in May 2022, are voluntary and cannot be enforced by airport staff; Tripp stressed they should not be allowed to supersede safety.
The city is asking flight students to avoid conducting flight training between 6 p.m. and 8 a.m. on weekdays and between 6 p.m. and 9 a.m. on weekends and holidays.
Tripp said that the next step is to request federal funding to conduct an airport noise compatibility planning study. This will allow the airport to conduct an analysis of noise exposures associated with airport operations and look at land uses incompatible with specific noise levels while recommending a program of alternatives to mitigate this noise. No study has yet established that Cottonwood has an objective problem with aviation noise.
During the Q&A session with participants, Tripp confirmed that the airport is a public use airport and is open 24 hours a day for anyone who wants to use it, just like a highway.
A participant asked if the airport has the ability to charge landing fees, and Tripp confirmed that they can do so as long as the fees are fair and consistent to all pilots and they cannot only target flight school students.
The commission formed a working group that had its initial meeting following Tripp’s talk and is planning to meet on a monthly basis. The group is made up of one airport commissioner, two resident representatives from Clarkdale, three resident representatives from Cottonwood, a member from both the Cottonwood city council and Clarkdale town councils and three aviation representatives, including one from Embry-Riddle.
