Fairbanks international airport is a Class Delta with a TRSA. With 4 Runways all in parallel one of which is a water lane we call the float pond and a gravel strip that is dual use for ski aircraft in winter and gravel in the summer.
Fairbanks is the hub for aviation in interior Alaska. We have multiple flights daily to Anchorage and Seattle on Alaska airlines. We are also the Hub for Cargo and air taxi service to the interior of Alaska.
Operations Areas
Tower There are 4 positions in the tower Clearance (CD), Ground (GC), Local (LC), and Local Assist (LA).
CD and GC are normally combined. GC only has two taxiways that parallel the runways. CD is required to enter all data to STARS for aircraft receiving TRSA service or flight following.
LC works the primary airport and is required to provide traffic advisories to the 2 satellite fields and 2 helipads within the Class D.
FAI tower has auto releases and is required to establish TRSA or IFR separation for departures. The traffic gets higher complexity when firefighting is added to the mix and pattern traffic to the Ski strip and 20L simultaneously.
TRACON There are 5 positions in the TRACON West Radar (WR), East Radar (ER), Handoff 1 (HO1), Handoff 2 (HO2) and Approach Data (AD). The staffing for the TRACON is fluid and will vary hour to hour. Normally WR will work the positions combined unless the Military is flying then ER will be split off if no military flying is scheduled or expected HO1 will be staffed.
The TRACON covers FAI, FBK and EIL all towered airports and one non towered airport ENN. The TRACON falls under ZAN sectors 15 to the west and 16 to the east. The east side of the airspace butts up against JPARC one of the militaries largest airspace complexes and FAI supports multiple large force exercises annually.
Traffic FAI is defined by seasonality. Winter will be very slow with many poor weather days. Summer will be busy with mostly VFR on a few days a year we get smoked out by wildfires in the area and will have a bad weather DAY in the summer. In the summer we add additional air carrier flights in the afternoon and evening and support the firefighting operation for the interior of Alaska. The traffic volume doubles from our slowest to busiest month. Generally, our busiest month is July or August with our busiest day being the day prior to Moose hunting season August 31st.
We have multiple air carrier flights to ANC and SEA daily and in the summer, we add flights to ORD, MSP, DEN, EDDF and CYDA. In the winter We will occasionally have to catch diverts from ANC when they have a snow event preventing Cargo aircraft form landing.
Here are the 2023 ops count numbers:
Tower Tracon Total
01/2023
5832
5281
11113
02/2023
5352
4589
9941
03/2023
8710
6754
15464
04/2023
7679
6040
13719
05/2023
11548
8493
20041
06/2023
13972
10100
24072
07/2023
14567
8832
23399
08/2023
13594
9626
23220
09/2023
12093
8192
20285
10/2023
8165
5660
13825
11/2023
6463
5088
11551
12/2023
5455
5052
10507
Training Typical training progression:
AG:FD-CD-GC-LA
D2:LC- AD-HO1
D3: WR-HO2-ER
GC will train combined with CD and FD. LA sometimes will get certified prior to LC but normally the cert. happens at the same time as LC.
After RTF you will begin training on WR and in the winter you will work a combined WR/ER position. If your training team recommends you can certify on HO1 before WR to get the Pay bump to D3.
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