This story is excerpted from the MT Lowdown, a weekly newsletter digest containing original reporting and analysis published every Friday.


Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport in Belgrade remains by far Montana’s busiest airport. But hundreds of thousands of passengers also flew into other parts of Montana last year, according to data collected by the Montana Department of Transportation.

While Billings remains the state’s largest city, its Billings-Logan International Airport was just the fourth-busiest Montana airport in terms of passenger arrivals recorded in 2022, behind the Missoula Airport and Glacier Park International Airport in Kalispell. Both Kalispell and Missoula did, however, see greater seasonal variation than Billings, drawing much of their traffic during the summer tourism season.

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Eric came to journalism in a roundabout way after studying engineering at Montana State University in Bozeman (credit, or blame, for his career direction rests with the campus's student newspaper, the Exponent). He has worked as a professional journalist in Montana since 2013, with stints at the Great Falls Tribune, Bozeman Daily Chronicle, and Solutions Journalism Network before joining the Montana Free Press newsroom in Helena full time in 2019.