Qualla: Asheville Regional Airport

Asheville Regional Airport: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ncmattj at English Wikipedia, CC BY 3.0. In 1987 a Concorde landed at AVL on a promotional tour and got snowed in overnight. The supersonic transport, designed for transatlantic flight at Mach 2, sat parked under a Blue Ridge dusting while ground crews scrambled for de-icing equipment they did not normally need at a regional airport. Then there was the 1996 Airbus A340 that arrived with Charles, Prince of Wales, headed for the Biltmore Estate. And the Boeing VC-25 - Air Force One - that touched down in 2011 with President Obama aboard. Asheville's 8,002-foot runway, modest by international standards, can handle almost anything. It has had to.

Image: Ncmattj at English Wikipedia | CC BY 3.0

Asheville Regional Airport: The Field at Fletcher

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 2.5. Asheville Regional opened in January 1961 with a 6,500-foot runway, replacing the older field closer to downtown. The terminal followed in June. The new airport sat near Fletcher, nine miles south of Asheville, in a valley that stayed below the worst of the mountain weather. Capi...

Image: CC BY-SA 2.5

Asheville Regional Airport: Project SOAR

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ncmattj at English Wikipedia, CC BY 3.0. By 2010 the original runway was over fifty years old and no longer met current FAA design standards. Project SOAR - Significant Opportunity for Aviation in our Region - built a temporary parallel runway in December 2015, demolished and reconstructed the original, and brought the ...

Image: Ncmattj at English Wikipedia | CC BY 3.0

Asheville Regional Airport: Boom Years

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ncmattj at English Wikipedia, CC BY 3.0. Asheville handled 579,443 passengers in 2009. By 2019 the number reached 1,616,762. Then COVID-19 cratered traffic to 704,972 in 2020 - a 56% drop overnight. The rebound was extraordinary. 2021 doubled the COVID floor at 1.4 million. 2022 hit 1.8 million. 2023 set an all-time rec...

Image: Ncmattj at English Wikipedia | CC BY 3.0

Asheville Regional Airport: AVL Forward

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cooperf815, CC0. The $400 million terminal expansion underway since 2023 will produce 280,000 square feet of new building - 150% larger than the old terminal - with twelve gates instead of seven and proper jet bridges replacing the manual stair-truck ramps still in use during construction. A new ...

Image: Cooperf815 | CC0

Asheville Regional Airport: Incidents and Echoes

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ncmattj at English Wikipedia, CC BY 3.0. On October 6, 2017, a man named Michael Christopher Estes left a bag containing an improvised explosive device near the terminal entrance, set to detonate the next morning at 6 AM. Bomb-sniffing dogs found it. Estes pleaded guilty in January 2018 to unlawful possession of an expl...

Image: Ncmattj at English Wikipedia | CC BY 3.0