The Central Nebraska Regional Airport in Grand Island held a celebration Thursday night for its 10,000th passenger of the year — the magic number to receive $1 million in federal infrastructure improvement funds. What’s significant for rural Nebraskans is not so much the fact that the airport hit that number (though it’s certainly nice for the airport’s budget), but how soon it hit 10,000.

The airport had its 10,000th passenger with four and a half months yet to go in the year, and Executive Director Mike Olson believes it can reach 20,000 passengers this year with the addition of flights to Phoenix in October. By comparison, the airport hasn’t even broken 9,000 since 2000, and hasn’t hit 20,000 since 1993. In other words, Grand Island’s airport is on track to double its highest amount of business in any year of the last decade.

So what does this mean for rural Nebraskans? Olson said that many of those passengers are coming from outside the Tri-Cities area of Grand Island, Hastings and Kearney — as far north as South Dakota, as far south as north-central Kansas, as far west as Ogallala. The airport considers its primary target area to be 2/3 of the state. Most rural Nebraskans are used to driving three, four or more hours to Lincoln or Omaha before they even get on a plane, making long-distance travel a bear. (Flying out of Grand Island, Kearney or Scottsbluff has always been an option, too, but usually a much more expensive one.) And when small towns are trying to attract more young professionals who have family and friends spread throughout the country, that hassle can be a major detractor.

Of course, the vast majority of Grand Island’s passenger load is traveling to Las Vegas and soon Phoenix, which aren’t exactly considered regional hubs (though they can be). But airport officials consider this only a steppingstone. Hall County Airport Authority Board President Curtis Griess said their long-term goal is to have two commercial airlines in addition to Allegiant competing with regular flights to regional hubs, thus keeping traditionally expensive fares competitive. To do that, they have to convince airlines they’ve got a large enough market to be viable, and reaching 20,000 passengers would be a critical part of that argument.

There’s a lot that has to happen for that goal to be achieved — most immediately a lengthening of the airport’s runway to accommodate larger planes, which the airport hopes to complete by 2011 — but smashing the 10,000 barrier was a major milestone along that path. As the virtual distance between people separated by thousands of miles shrinks online, rural Nebraskans may be getting closer to seeing their literal travel time shrink, too.