Mid-Ohio Valley Regional Airport Manager Glen Kelly, left, listens as Wood County Airport Authority President Bill Richardson speaks during Tuesday’s authority meeting. (Photo by Evan Bevins)

WILLIAMSTOWN — The Mid-Ohio Valley Regional Airport’s new carrier continued its strong performance in January.

“Contour is still at 100 percent completion rate,” airport Manager Glen Kelly said during Tuesday’s monthly Wood County Airport Authority meeting.

The Tennessee-based carrier began providing service between the local airport and Charlotte Douglas International Airport on Dec. 5, tallying 340 enplanements for the month. In January, usually a slow month at the airport, there were 239 enplanements, up 17 from the previous year and the highest total since 249 in 2016.

Kelly said there have only been two days in the last two months that Contour didn’t fly — “one where Charlotte was iced in, one where we were iced in.” Those situations do not count toward the carrier’s reliability rate. Falling below 95 percent could be grounds for the airport to terminate the contract.

Reliability was the major emphasis for Contour as it moved in at the airport, and Kelly and officials are pleased with the results so far.

“We finally have an airline that’s performing as projected or as marketed to us,” authority President Bill Richardson said.

It’s Kelly’s hope that reliable service can get the airport above the threshold of 10,000 annual enplanements, putting it in line for $1 million in federal Airport Improvement Program funds, instead of the current $150,000.

Kelly told authority members he would be discussing marketing efforts with Contour later on Tuesday, as well as meeting with a representative of a private company that wants to build a hangar at the airport large enough to house a G4 private jet. That would give Contour a place to store its jet overnight as well as accommodate larger private aircraft.

Kelly said it will cost an estimated $37,000 to install water and sewer infrastructure for the proposed hangar space at the end of the airport’s south ramp.

“Getting that water and sewer pulled over there is really going to help anybody else,” he said. “I believe it’ very important that we get this done if we can, not just for the airline but for the future growth of the airport.”

In other business, Kelly said additional work to remove tall trees is needed to reopen the airport’s secondary runway for night operations. The Wood County Commission paid to have trees removed and topped last fall in Veterans Memorial Park. He estimated it would cost about $5,000 to address trees at the other end of the runway, with $2,900 worth of work done Monday. Spending a total of $7,000 would allow the area in question to be bulldozed, making it easier to handle obstruction issues in the future, Kelly said.

The airport’s master plan is still being revised and edited, Kelly said. It needs to be updated in order for the airport to qualify for millions of dollars in federal infrastructure funding that will require no matching money, he said. Airport officials hope to receive up to $18 million to repave the main runway through President Donald Trump’s infrastructure initiative.