Western Neb. Rgnl/William B. Heilig Airport Guide

Western Nebraska Regional Airport sits about three miles east of Scottsbluff, in the North Platte valley of the Nebraska panhandle. It is the main commercial airport for the Scottsbluff and Gering area and for the farming and ranching country around it. The nearest larger airports are in Denver and Rapid City, several hours away by road.

The first airport on the site opened in 1934, with airmail service, a weather bureau station and pilot training. In 1942 the U.S. Army built a new airfield here, Scottsbluff Army Airfield, which trained B-17 and B-24 bomber crews and later C-47 and glider crews. The War Department handed the field to the City of Scottsbluff in 1947. Scotts Bluff County took control in July 1970 and named it William B. Heilig Field. The county created an Airport Authority Board in 2003, which also oversaw a new terminal building.

Two asphalt runways remain from the wartime layout: 12/30 at 8,279 feet and 5/23 at 8,002 feet. Both are long enough for regional jets. Scheduled passenger service is a single Essential Air Service route to Denver, flown by SkyWest as United Express. The FAA counted about 27,900 aircraft operations in the 12 months to May 2022, around 76 a day, and 91 percent of them were general aviation.