My first view of this airport came when the pilot on my eight-seater Boutique Air flight, pointed the nose down in order to lose thousands of feet of altitude quickly before approach. This was a bit harrowing. A few minutes later we landed incredibly softly on runway 20 after a somewhat turbulent approach. Alamosa has a reputation for being terribly windy, it’s lying at 7000 feet in the middle of the San Luis Valley after all, and puddle jumper flights there tend to be rather uncomfortable experiences, even more so when you reach the valley. It was therefore rather surprising that the pilot managed such a soft landing that at least half of my fellow passengers didn’t even realize we’d returned to solid ground until the pilot really started hitting the breaks. He received a round of applause for that.
The pilot parked by the apron side of the commercial terminal, a one floor mission revival style building. Immediately upon entering the terminal from the apron, there was a conveniently positioned sign from the TSA reminding passengers that “you are now leaving the secure area of the airport.” Clearly this was not a good airport if you were wanting to transfer to another flight (which who does?!). The hall led past men’s and women’s bathrooms, and then into a lobby at the parking lot side of the building. A woman on the flight had told us that part of the parking lot was only recently paved, before you parked at the airport in a gravel lot, but the parking was, and still is, free.
The lobby consisted of check in desk, Hertz rental desk and baggage claim, which was just a window with a shelf that the Boutique Air employees would throw out everyone’s bags onto whenever a flight arrived. The rest of the airport consisted of a small lounge for passengers ready to board flights to Denver, which was behind a decently sized TSA screening area. I’d seen a sign at the terminal in Denver warning passengers about airports with inadequate screening facilities, which meant they would have to go through security again if transferring at DIA, but it didn’t list any airports. It appeared that the large security presence at Alamosa (four TSA agents and a full array of scanners), and I’d assume at Colorado’s other rural airports made this sign obsolete. I’ve since heard that agents at these sorts of small airports typically attempt to do very comprehensive screenings due to post-9/11 fears.
I waited in the lobby for about an hour for my ride to pick me up. Met a rather nice TSA agent who encouraged me half-jokingly to stay all day if I liked, which was fine by me since half the time I was leaving my rather heavy luggage unattended while walking to the other side of the lobby to sit in the comfy chairs and read aviation magazines (the only thing worth reading in that lobby). The Hertz agent took reservations (the parking lot had about ten reserved spaces) mentioning that she was charging to a card ending in 4532 or 6182; at one point she laid out prices to a customer interested in getting a one-way rental to Denver. Time passed by slowly.