Medicine Hat Regional Airport (Image Credit: File Photo/CHAT News)

By Jesse Gill

Public Engagement

Medicine Hat Regional Airport anticipates record flight numbers for 2025, as it seeks community feedback

Jan 19, 2026 | 10:47 AM

The Medicine Hat Regional Airport was estimated to have about 37,000 flights in 2025.

Airport manager Logan Boyd says this would make it one of the busiest years the airport has seen since the late 1970’s.

Statistics Canada showed the number for 2025 up to the end of October at 32,743, with the remaining 2025 data expected by early spring.

Those flights included about 730 flights in and out from WestJet, with a daily departure and return flight offered.

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Flights that Boyd said have shown strong completion rates.

“Completion factor is how the airline industry measures that. That’s total flights completed on the same day. There has been marked and significant improvement from the air carrier in 2025,” Boyd said.

“Close to 100 per cent of the flights were complete. So that was nice to see and really happy for our partners over at WestJet for that strong performance.”

Boyd said the reliability and convenience are factors in flying out of Medicine Hat.

“The convenience of parking in the parking lot, you’re getting dropped off at the curb, and you’re 25 steps from the aircraft. So that’s really our selling point,” Boyd said.

“That utilization and strong utilization is just really important to those airline and retention and attraction activities that we’re busy on,” he added.

“The best thing that we can do is take strong passenger numbers to the carrier and say, hey, let’s continue to progress the service and also taking that to other carriers as well.”

These flights were a small portion of the overall totals at the airport.

“Medevac, we’re doing about 890 departures a year. We do have a little bit more commercial traffic in there, maybe another five to six per cent is commercial traffic, and the rest is general aviation training.”

Boyd said he sees the aviation training at the airport as developing those training and skills opportunities for the community.

“That’s kind of the broader economic value of the airport and social value of the airport. We get students coming in from around the province, sometimes outside of the province, to come and learn here to see the community; sometimes they stay,” Boyd said.

“The high school program that’s truly unique, even in the North American context. It’s providing a pipeline of talent to provide workforce for the aviation industry.”

Super T Aviation offers flight training at the Medicine Hat Regional Airport, but also partners with Prairie Rose Public Schools on the Dave Rozdeba Flight Academy that offers high school students the opportunity to earn their private pilot’s license.

This contributes to the bulk of the takeoffs and landings at the Medicine Hat Regional Airport.

The City of Medicine Hat is working on an Airport Master Plan, which it looks to have completed near the end of 2026.

They are currently in the first of three phases, with a strategic plan and impact study looking to be completed by the end of the first quarter.

An online survey has now launched on the City of Medicine Hat’s Shape Your City project page, giving residents a chance to provide input on their perspective for the future of the airport until the end of day on Feb. 8, 2026.

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READ: City of Medicine Hat has upcoming public engagement and survey to develop its Airport Master Plan (Jan. 13, 2026)

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The city is also hosting five pop-up events to provide public engagement opportunities.

Monday, Jan. 19

• 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. – YXH – Main Terminal building
• 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. – Medicine Hat Mall – Centre Court

Tuesday, Jan. 20

• 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. – Big Marble Go Centre

Wednesday, Jan. 21

• 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. – Station Coffee Co.
• 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. – Medicine Hat Public Library

Boyd said those who attend will see storyboards providing an airport overview.

“We’ll have some links to the survey as well, but really, it’s just a conversation. It’s just providing the opportunity for residents to come ask questions about the project, and we’ll ask some direct questions,” Boyd said.

Boyd said that they are looking holistically at the airport requirements, the opportunities, social and economic value that they can provide for the community, and really laying that out on a year-by-year, costed-out basis.

“Based on those priorities, I’m really looking at what the focus areas for our airport are, and that’s going to contribute to the vision we come up with. So the public’s feedback is instrumental,” Boyd said.

“We’re looking at asking some questions on what do you see as success for the Medicine Hat Regional Airport, and kind of that 20-year timeframe, what aspects and services about the airport are most important to you.”

“We are doing a social economic impact study, it’s looking at basically what the value of the airport is. Really analyzing the different outputs of the airport.”