Sonoma County’s airport had its busiest month ever in July, three years after its $40m terminal was finished. The county is sketching the next round of work, and a noise program was cut back before it began.
For Oakmont and Kenwood, Charles M. Schulz–Sonoma County Airport is the local airport, up Highway 12 and north on 101 rather than south to the big Bay Area airports. By the county’s own count, 95,732 passengers went through its terminal in July, the most in any month on record, after 92,759 in June and 86,537 in May. Through July the airport has carried 505,157 passengers, 10% more than in the same months of last year.
Last year was itself a record, at 780,637. That was 60% more than the 488,179 of 2019, the last full year before the pandemic. Growth on that scale puts pressure on the terminal, the parking lot and the neighbors, and the county has begun to plan for it.
The terminal
The terminal is new. The county broke ground in November 2020 on a project its website budgeted at $31m. The budget counted on $23.8m in Federal Aviation Administration grants and $7.5m from airport revenues and the fees added to every ticket. When the Board of Supervisors cut the ribbon on the finished front entrance in August 2023, the county called it a $40m job. It added about 27,000 square feet, four boarding gates, a two-lane security checkpoint and two baggage carousels.
The county also took a $17m state infrastructure loan in 2018 for terminal work, about 490 long-term parking spaces and the design of “future improvements”. Last year’s passenger total was about a fifth higher than the 641,178 of 2023, the year the terminal was finished.
The Sonoma County Aviation Commission, a nine-member advisory body, meets at 8am on the third Thursday of every other month in the airport manager’s office on Airport Boulevard. On August 20 its agenda carried a discussion item called “Landside Planning Concepts”. Landside means everything at an airport apart from the runways, taxiways and apron.
The Press Democrat covered the meeting. It reported that the airport manager, Jon Stout, described a 15-year program coordinated by the consultants Mead & Hunt. By the paper’s account, it covers some 13 potential projects around the terminal, most without adopted phasing or funding. Among them, the paper reported, are a consolidated rental-car facility, changes to parking, road improvements, new hangars and a move for the airport’s offices. The agenda itself gives no figures, and the minutes have not been posted.
The airport’s standing master plan, the 2030 plan whose environmental review dates from 2011, already lists a “replacement airline passenger terminal” among its projects for the following 20 years. It also lists moving the fire station and the control tower to the west side of the field. The plan’s short-term projects were finished a decade ago: lengthening the main runway by 885 feet to 6,000, and the crosswind runway by 200.
What is being built
Apron C, where airliners park, load and refuel, is being rebuilt and widened from four aircraft positions to six. The FAA is paying for the $5.7m job, awarded to Granite Construction in January 2025 and due to finish this fall. Next in line, according to the Press Democrat, are a wildlife-exclusion fence and pavement preservation on another part of the apron, both headed to the Supervisors on September 15.
More flights
Southwest began flying from Santa Rosa in April, to Burbank, San Diego, Las Vegas and Denver. Denver goes to five days a week this month, and Austin follows in October.
Alaska Airlines brought scheduled service back to the field and is still its largest carrier. From November 1 it will add seasonal flights to Boise, Phoenix and Salt Lake City, running through April on 76-seat Embraer 175s. That takes its nonstop map to 12 cities, and its seasonal Palm Springs flights resume on Sept. 10. American is the airport’s third airline. Avelo, the budget carrier that once based aircraft there, flew its last Sonoma County flights on August 11 last year.
Supervisor David Rabbitt’s case for all this was that it spares residents the drive to the Bay Area airports. Phoenix, Palm Springs and Boise are now, or soon will be, a single flight from Santa Rosa.
The noise
The airport’s noise abatement program dates from 1988. CBS Bay Area reported last February that the FAA had introduced new departure procedures in January 2024. Over the following year, it said, complaints rose by between 200% and more than 600% compared with 2023. By its account they came from Sebastopol, Occidental and the lower Russian River, places that had seldom heard the airport before. Supervisor Lynda Hopkins called it “a sharp uptick in noise complaints”.
None of this is over the valley, which lies east of the field. It is a west-county grievance, and the county has handled it as one. It hired Cignus, an airspace consultancy, for an approach feasibility study and held a community workshop in Sebastopol in October 2024. By June the commission was discussing a “Fly Quiet” program and two candidate procedures: a visual approach to Runway 14 and an alternative to an existing arrival route.
The commission acted on both on August 20. The Press Democrat reported that it cut a $415,000 noise package down to four elements: quiet hours, a scoring system for the airlines, a community roundtable, and flight tracking with complaint management. Contract costs are capped at $80,000, the paper said. By the paper’s account, the commission also voted 5–1 to recommend up to $270,000 for a third phase of procedure design by Cignus.
The airport’s own neighbor website says only that it is “exploring the development of an alternate approach to Runway 14”. It adds that airlines receive monthly reports of the complaints made against them. The Supervisors have the last word on the money.
The commission meets again on October 15.
Update, Sept. 29: On Sept. 15 the Supervisors voted 4-0, with James Gore abstaining, to approve $4.6 million in consulting task orders for the airport, the Sonoma Index-Tribune reported. By the paper’s account they separately approved a $470,380 contract for pavement work on Apron E and Runway 14/32. The paper also reported that noise policy and flight operations are due back before the board as early as Nov. 3.
Sources: the airport’s own passenger numbers and neighbor program; the county’s releases on the terminal, Apron C and Alaska’s new routes; the Aviation Commission agendas of June 18 and August 20; the 2030 master plan project list; the IBank loan record; the Sonoma Valley Sun on Southwest; ABC7 on Avelo; CBS Bay Area on the noise complaints; and the Press Democrat, whose reporting of the August 20 commission meeting is attributed as such above. The minutes of that meeting have not yet been posted. Corrections: [email protected].