Northeast Florida Regional Airport
| Northeast Florida Regional Airport | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Summary | |||||||||||||||||||
| Airport type | Public | ||||||||||||||||||
| Owner | St. Augustine - St. Johns County Airport Authority | ||||||||||||||||||
| Location | St. Augustine, Florida | ||||||||||||||||||
| Elevation AMSL | 10 ft / 3 m | ||||||||||||||||||
| Coordinates | 29°57′33.3″N 081°20′23″W / 29.959250°N 81.33972°WCoordinates: 29°57′33.3″N 081°20′23″W / 29.959250°N 81.33972°W | ||||||||||||||||||
| Website | http://www.flynfra.com | ||||||||||||||||||
| Map | |||||||||||||||||||
 SGJ
SGJ
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Source: FAA and airport website
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| Aircraft operations | 131,002 |
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| Based aircraft | 249 |
Northeast Florida Regional Airport (IATA: UST, ICAO: KSGJ, FAA LID: SGJ), formerly St. Augustine Airport, is four miles (6 km) north of St. Augustine, in St. Johns County, Florida. It is publicly owned by the St. Augustine – St. Johns County Airport Authority.
Most U.S. airports use the same three-letter location identifier for the FAA and IATA, but Northeast Florida Regional Airport is SGJ to the FAA and UST to the IATA (which assigned SGJ to Sagarai, Papua New Guinea).
On December 27, 1933 the St. Augustine City Commission voted to buy 276 acres (1.12 km2) in Araquay Park, north of the city, for $8,000 for conversion to a public airport. U.S. Government grants through the decade allowed improvements to the airfield, and after the outbreak of World War II in 1939 vast new sums were provided for possible military use.
After the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, civil aviation at the airfield was cancelled and the U.S. Navy took over the airport, renaming it Naval Auxiliary Air Station St. Augustine. Used as a satellite gunnery base in connection with training operations at nearby Naval Air Station Jacksonville, improvements were made to NAAS St. Augustine included additional more runway and hangar construction, support facilities and a control tower. After the war, the Navy reduced operations and in May 1946 the airport was returned to the city.
In the postwar period, government subsidies made possible the establishment of "feeder airlines" providing air service to smaller cities, with St. Augustine Airport becoming a scheduled stop for two passenger airlines. With cutbacks in subsidies the feeder airlines went out of business, and by 1950 the airport, with weeds growing through the cracks in the runway, was seen as a "white elephant" the city could ill afford to operate. It closed and was leased to the local Moose Lodge for $1.00 a year. Soon the white elephant became a bonanza - a major factor in the industrial development of St. Augustine and St. Johns County.
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