[1] Federal Aviation Administration records say the airport had 15,983 passenger boardings (enplanements) in calendar year 2008,[2] 13,692 in 2009 and 14,686 in 2010.

[1] In the year ending September 13, 2019, the airport had 31,960 aircraft operations, average 88 per day: 70% general aviation, 5% airline, 23% air taxi and 2% military.

[5] Denver-based Coover-Clark & Associates, Inc. designed the building, and Kadrmas Lee & Jackson's Rapid City office handled the construction administration.

Officials also waited because Pierre had been without scheduled passenger jet service operated with mainline aircraft for over 30 years.

The new terminal building was designed with the space set aside for a loading bridge, so it required very little effort to install one when the time came.

In 1979 North Central merged with Southern Airways to form Republic Airlines which had four departures a day at Pierre flown with McDonnell Douglas DC-9-50s and Convair 580s.

[15] By late 1988, two regional air carriers were serving Pierre: Continental Express operated by Rocky Mountain Airways flying ATR-42 and Beechcraft 1900 turboprops from Denver, and Northwest Airlink operated by Mesaba Airlines flying Fokker F27 turboprops from Minneapolis/St.

Until June 30, 2006 Great Lakes Airlines flights to Denver were subsidized by the Essential Air Service (EAS) program.

On August 15, 2016, Aerodynamics, Inc. (later California Pacific Airlines) began flying to Watertown with daily service to Denver, via Pierre, using Embraer ERJ-145 regional jet aircraft.

[20] In April, 2021 Denver Air Connection was awarded the EAS contract against city preference,[21] since the subsidy amount was significantly less than the SkyWest proposal.

A decision was made in October 2021 that Denver Air would keep the EAS award and SkyWest ultimately ended all service to both Pierre and Watertown on January 3, 2022.