Rapid City Regional Airport Air Service Data
Chart Definitions
Year-to-Date Enplanements & Deplanements These four numbers tell you how many passengers have flown through Rapid City Regional Airport so far this year. Enplanements are passengers who boarded a flight at RAP heading somewhere else. Deplanements are passengers who landed at RAP arriving from somewhere else. Together they give you a real-time pulse on how busy the airport is right now compared to where we are in the calendar year.
Enplanements by Year This chart shows the total number of passengers who boarded flights at RAP each year. The dramatic dip in 2020 reflects the COVID-19 pandemic when air travel nearly stopped entirely. The strong recovery through 2024 and 2025 shows that Rapid City air service has not only bounced back but reached record highs. The 2026 bar appears low because the year has just started.
Year-Over-Year Passenger Growth This chart answers the question: did more or fewer people fly out of Rapid City this month compared to the same month last year? Each cluster of bars represents one month, with a different colored bar for 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025. Bars above zero mean growth, bars below zero mean decline.
Average Passengers Per Flight This chart shows how many passengers were on each departure on average each year. In 2003 flights averaged about 40 passengers. By 2024 that number had grown to nearly 80. This tells us two things, airlines are using larger aircraft at RAP, and those planes are consistently fuller. A rising number here is a strong sign of a healthy and growing air service market.
Capacity Offered vs Flight Efficiency (2025) The bars show how many seat miles airlines offered at RAP each month in 2025, essentially how much flying capacity was available. The line shows what percentage of those seats were actually filled. Notice that even in slow winter months the line stays above 75% meaning flights are nearly always full regardless of the season. In peak summer months airlines add significantly more capacity and passengers still fill those seats.
Passenger Enplanements by Season — Last 5 Years This pie chart breaks down when people fly out of Rapid City by quarter over the last five years. Q3 (July through September) is the busiest season at 34.6% of all annual passengers driven by summer tourism to Mount Rushmore, the Badlands, and the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. Q1 (January through March) is the slowest at 17.8%. This seasonal pattern is important for understanding when airlines need the most capacity and where growth opportunities exist in the slower quarters.
Available Seat Miles (ASM) A standard aviation industry measurement of capacity. It is calculated by multiplying the number of seats on a plane by the miles flown. A plane with 100 seats flying 500 miles produces 50,000 ASMs. Airlines use this metric to measure how much total flying capacity they are offering in a market.
Load Factor The percentage of available seats that were filled with paying passengers. A load factor of 85% means 85 out of every 100 seats were occupied. Higher load factors indicate strong demand for air service. Sustained high load factors are often used by airports and economic development organizations to make the case for additional flights or larger aircraft.
