Columbia Regional Airport runway 13-31 reopens ahead of schedule

Columbia Regional Airport runway 13-31 reopened at 8 a.m. on Saturday, April 13 after being closed for modifications. The runway was closed on the morning of Tuesday, April 9 after pilot safety and customer experience concerns regarding the crown on runway 2-20 where it crosses runway 13-31. The original estimation for reopening was late Monday, April 15 or early Tuesday, April 16. Below is a message from Columbia Interim City Manager John Glascock.

I am pleased to announce that runway 13-31 at COU opened today ahead of schedule. I want to again apologize to our customers who were impacted by this temporarity closure. I understand the frustration of having canceled, delayed or changed flights. I am sorry for those customers who had unexpected out of pocket expenses. We will work to regain your patronage and hope that you will fly with us again.

Even though the runway was FAA compliant, we take your feedback seriously and want to make sure that every customer has a good experience while flying in and out of COU. We also want to thank the regional airline pilots for bringing these concerns to our attention last weekend. Your safety is and always will be our first priority.

Our airline partners have indicated they plan to resume service either Monday or Tuesday, depending on their schedules. Please reach out to your airline for flight details. United Airlines can be reached by calling 800-864-8331 and American Airlines can be reached by calling 800-433-7300.

I want to thank the many people and organizations who helped us during this process, both to figure out a solution and to finish the work quickly. Thank you to our airline partners and their regional carriers, our colleagues at the FAA, engineering firm Burns & McDonnell, contractor Emery Sapp & Sons and their subcontractor Capital Paving, our community partners, Airport Manager Mike Parks, Economic Development Director Stacey Button, COU staff members, Bucket Media, City of Columbia Community Relations staff members and the local media for helping to inform the public.

Again, I apologize to our impacted customers and we hope to see you at COU soon.