McGrath Airport guide

McGrath Airport (ICAO PAMC) serves McGrath, a village of about 300 people on the Kuskokwim River in interior Alaska. Roads do not connect the community to Anchorage, 221 miles to the southeast, so the airport carries its passengers, mail and freight. The field began as an airstrip cleared in 1940 and later operated as McGrath Army Airbase.

The State of Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, Central Region, owns and runs the airport. It has two runways: 17/35, an asphalt strip of 5,936 by 100 feet with an instrument approach, and 5/23, a gravel strip of 2,000 by 60 feet. Northern Petroleum Services sells aviation fuel and provides aircraft maintenance on the field.

Scheduled passenger flights link McGrath with Anchorage, and with the smaller communities of Nikolai and Takotna. FAA data for the 12 months to July 2012 show about 11,000 aircraft operations, roughly 30 a day, with 82 percent air taxi traffic and 18 percent general aviation. Ten single-engine aircraft were based there. Boardings ran between 4,900 and 5,300 a year from 2008 to 2010.