Silver City-Grant County Airport

County Airfield

 The Grant County Airport is a commercial airport serving southwest New Mexico including the communities of Silver City, Hurley, Deming, and Lordsburg. The facility opened on November 30, 1951.

Historical commercial airline service:

Air Terminal

Frontier Airlines began serving the airport on December 1, 1951 as a stop on the carriers route between El Paso and Phoenix. This route also included stops at Las Cruces, Deming, and Lordsburg, New Mexico as well as at Clifton, Safford, and Tucson, Arizona. The stops at Las Cruces, Deming, and Lordsburg all ended in 1953 which made for nonstop flights from Silver City to El Paso. Initially Frontier operated Douglas DC-3’s on the route and upgraded to Convair 340 and Convair 580 aircraft during the 1960’s. The Phoenix to El Paso route was modified in the mid-1950’s to operate from Phoenix to Albuquerque providing service from Silver City to Albuquerque rather than El Paso. The stops at Clifton and Safford ended in the early 1960’s providing Silver City with nonstop flights to Tucson and occasionally a nonstop flight to Phoenix. The Phoenix and Tucson flights ended in 1974 and some Albuquerque flights began stopping in Alamogordo. Silver City was also briefly served by Aztec Airlines in 1966 and 1967 with service to Las Cruces and El Paso using a Piper Aztec aircraft. As Frontier was designated as a local service carrier by the federal government and the carrier was serving the Grant County Airport at the time of airline deregulation in 1978, Silver City is eligible for guaranteed Essential Air Service (EAS) with government subsidy.