Forecasts back 10-gate Concourse A; planners say Boise will need about 23 gates by 2044

BOISE, Idaho — At the Boise Airport Commission’s Feb. 5 meeting, airport staff and consulting teams presented a 20-year commercial passenger forecast and a program of terminal projects that support building a 10-gate Concourse A and renovating existing concourses.

Alex, an airport staff presenter speaking on behalf of Airport Director Rebecca Hupp, reported the airport handled 4,990,885 total passengers in 2024, a roughly 5% increase over 2023. “We almost crest the 5,000,000 passenger mark. We were at 4,990,885 passengers,” Alex said. The airport’s enplanements and passenger loads have risen month over month, and staff said enplanements were up in December 2024 compared with December 2023.

Brian Poe, a forecasting consultant working with Ventris Architects’ team, told commissioners the consulting team’s base forecast projects about 4.7 million enplanements in 2044 under a mixed, econometric approach. “All our forecasts are really predictions. They’re — they’re our best guesses with the best information at hand,” Poe said. The consultants presented an alternative range of about 3.8 million to 5.3 million enplanements depending on optimistic and pessimistic scenarios and projected commercial operations of roughly 77,000 to 98,000 annually in…