The USAAF base was built as Stephenville Air Base. However, after the USAAF became the United States Air Force in 1947, it was renamed Ernest Harmon Air Force Base on June 23, 1948, in honour of Captain Ernest Emery Harmon. Harmon was a US Army Air Corpsace who was killed in an air crash in 1933.[5]
The mandate of the base was to maintain a tanker alert force and its capability to meet and refuel Strategic Air Command jet bombers en route to targets. The Boeing KC-97 Stratofreighter was employed in this task.
The airport is now owned and operated by the local airport authority, the Stephenville Airport Corporation Inc. Stephenville Airport was designated as an alternate in the Trans Oceanic Plane Stop (TOPS) program on July 23, 1970.
The Stephenville Airport was the major passenger airport for all of western Newfoundland until the early 1990s when provincial government decided to direct more traffic to the Deer Lake Regional Airport. All major Canadian carriers used Stephenville such as Air Canada, Eastern Provincial Airways and Canadian Airlines.
Stephenville International Airport was one of the locations of Operation Yellow Ribbon on September 11, 2001.[6]
On February 1, 2018, the Canada Flight Supplement indicated that runway 02/20, which was 3,959 ft (1,207 m) long, had been closed.[1]
In 2020, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the airport suffered notable cuts to its airline routes. All airlines never returned to Stephenville as commercial aviation increased across Canada and at nearby Deer Lake Regional Airport. [7]
Operation Yellow Ribbon
On September 11, 2001, eight civilian airliners made unscheduled landings at the Stephenville Airport following the closure of North American airspace in the wake of the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. As a participant in Operation Yellow Ribbon, the town hosted nearly 3,000 stranded passengers for approximately one week.
