For the first time since 1993, the Arizona Department of Transportation selected the Sedona Airport as the state’s Airport of the Year for 2025, choosing it from among 67 public-use airports across the state.

The Sedona-Oak Creek Airport Authority accepted the award during a reception at the terminal building on Wednesday, May 14, attended by about 50 residents and state, county and local officials.

“For over 30 years, ADOT has been awarding this prestigious honor to airports across the state … competition is always stiff,” ADOT Airport Grants Manager Jeff Webb said. “We have a criteria for safety and security, operational excellence, environmental sustainability, innovation and technology, community engagement, economic impact and maintenance and infrastructure … I am so happy to officially and publicly congratulate [Airport Manager] Ed Rose and his team for winning the 2025 Airport of the Year.”

SOCAA Board President Pam Fazzini prepared the award application.

“I was pleasantly shocked and surprised to learn we picked up this award,” said Rose, who has been the airport manager since October 2019. His work at the airport included discussing construction of a secondary access road for the airport with the Sedona Fire District, Yavapai County and the U.S. Forest Service, which was mentioned in the award application.

“SFD had first noted that they prefer to have a secondary means of access, and I understand their perspective,” Rose said. “However, it would have to begin in the city. It would have to traverse [Forest Service] property, because this airport is … surrounded by forest service property, and then it’s the city of Sedona. I see this personally as a municipal project, not necessarily an airport-funded project. So I initiated discussions with the city and basically it would be an engineering solution as to where this road would go, and where it would enter the airport property.”

Rose said that the airport also works with the fire district by providing annual aircraft familiarization and driver training for firefighters and worked with the Sedona Police Department to develop the airport’s first emergency plan.

Rose also began a program to reconstruct the airport’s fire suppression system in 2024, which will add a 250,000-gallon water tank to replace the airport’s existing 88,000-gallon tank and a backup generator that Rose anticipated will be installed in October.

“Sedona Airport has reduced its environmental footprint by offering jet fuel with 30% of its contents coming from sustainable non-fossil sources,” an ADOT press release stated. ”It participated in an Arizona State University energy audit, which led to converting all hangar lighting to LED bulbs and replacing two propane furnaces with heat pumps … Among other technology enhancements, Sedona Airport used grant funding administered by ADOT to replace its Automated Weather Observation System with the latest technologies for providing pilots with current airfield conditions.”

Rose was also recently selected as president of the Arizona Airports Association, which represents the state’s public-use airports and advocates for funding from the Federal Aviation Administration and ADOT. Previously serving as AZAA’s first vice president, he will hold the presidency for one year.

Rose said his primary goal as the organization’s president would be to protect the Arizona Aviation Fund, which is a pooled annual revenue source between $15 million and $16 million generated by fuel taxes and other sources and used to support airport projects in partnership with ADOT and local airport sponsors.

“That’s a state fund, and it’s gotten swept a number of years right now … they owe us about $80.4 million that’s been diverted to the general fund to cover other wants and wishes of the state, and I’d like to see that fund protected from being swept again,” Rose said. “There’s already discussion about sweeping it again.”

As local examples, Rose said that a runway strengthening study funded by the state and SOCAA, the purchase of 2.6 acres of Forest Service land to extend a taxiway and updating the airport’s 2017 master plan were “in limbo because there is no state and local fund because of the sweep.”