With the roar of jet engines and an official ribbon cutting, a new era at Fulton Field is underway.

Friday marked the official opening of the newly renovated $25-million Kamloops Airport.

For John O’Fee, president of the Kamloops Airport Authority Society, which led the city’s push for an expanded airport, opening day was a long time coming.

“You see the artist conception and you wonder if the building is going to live up to that,” he said.

“It’s turned out, if anything, better than I thought it would.”

What the airport received for the $25-million price tag was a terminal 50 per cent bigger than the previous, an additional security-screening checkpoint, expansion to the secure passenger lounge, along with new washrooms, a permanent customs area, increased room within the baggage-claim area and a new baggage carousel.

An additional 2,000 feet of runway was also completed earlier in the year, bringing the landing-strip length to 8,000 feet.

The airport can now accommodate up to 200 passengers at a time.

O’Fee believes the new airport will open up the city even further to the rest of the country.

He said it’s fine to want to attract new air carriers with new destinations, but suggested it won’t happen unless there is a facility to handle them — a capability O’Fee feels the airport has now.

It’s a sentiment echoed by Mayor Peter Milobar.

He said the airport will not only solidify the region’s tourism sector, but also attract business travel, arguing every strong city has a vibrant airport.

With the airport ideally poised to see even more growth once the world’s economic fortunes change, Milobar maintained the money spent was well worth it.

“The overall feel, look, fit and finish, it makes it feel like a very modern airport — one that somebody should be expecting and anticipating as they come into a city this size,” he said.

The provincial and federal government each chipped in $6 million for the expansion, while the rest will be financed by an airport-improvement fee that now sits at $10.