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March 9, 2026
GREEN BAY – Green Bay Austin Straubel International Airport (GRB) has soared to the top, earning the title of 2025 Best Overall Non-hub Airport from aviation research firm Swelbar-Zhong Consultancy.
GRB Director Marty Piette said the designation recognizes the airport’s strength in air service, customer experience, financial performance and the overall value it provides to passengers and the region.
“Being recognized as the best overall non-hub airport in the country is an extraordinary honor,” he said. “This achievement belongs to our entire community. I want to thank the people of Brown County, Northeast Wisconsin and Upper Michigan for their continued support, trust and loyalty to GRB.”
Brown County Executive Troy Streckenbach said the best overall recognition reflects GRB’s broader regional impact – noting that a high-performing airport is essential for business growth, tourism, workforce development and overall competitiveness.
“GRB’s growth demonstrates the confidence our airline partners have in the opportunities here, reinforced by a community that prioritizes flying local and investing locally,” he said.
Piette said GRB’s vendors, partners and employees were instrumental in earning the Swelbar-Zhong Consultancy recognition.
“Their dedication, professionalism and teamwork are what make this level of excellence possible,” he said.
Over the years, Piette said that commitment has been reflected in a variety of notable achievements – including the airport’s multi-phased construction project, part of which won a Wisconsin Transportation Builders Association/WisDOT Contractor-Engineers “Outstanding Construction Project Award,” and the airport’s distinction as the only United Airlines-served airport in Wisconsin to earn the Silver Safety Award – both of which The Business News highlighted in its Feb. 21, 2024 and Oct. 21, 2024 issues, respectively.
More on Swelbar-Zhong
Piette said Swelbar-Zhong’s annual rankings use a comprehensive mix of performance metrics and industry benchmarks, with the study conducted independently to provide an objective evaluation of each airport.
“Basically, they calculate what’s called an air access index for airports,” he said. “They look at how many seats are available in a particular market, which other markets are served and the type of airline, whether it’s a legacy airline like United, American or Delta or another carrier.”
Piette said Swelbar-Zhong goes a step further by evaluating airline economics, assessing how well each market performs from an airline’s perspective.
“There is a lot of good data in the report,” he said.
Piette said U.S. airports are categorized by the number of passengers they carry relative to the total number of passengers carried in the U.S.
“There are about 425 commercial service airports in the U.S., and of those, about 276 are considered non-hub like Green Bay,” he said. “So, out of those 276, which is more than half of the airports in the U.S., GRB’s calculations rose to the top for 2025.”
Not only was GRB the best performing non-hub airport in the U.S. for 2025, but Piette said it was also the most improved from the previous year.
“I think it relates to more people continuing to choose GRB,” he said. “I don’t know what our score for 2024 was, but I know it was still good. We saw that reflected in our passenger numbers for 2025. We were up almost 6% over 2024 passengers. It was actually our busiest year since 2011, so 14 years.”
Piette said the 2025 Best Overall Non-hub Airport honor validates the efforts the GRB team has been putting in for the last several years.
“We’ve developed good relationships with the airlines,” he said. “We have demonstrated to the airlines that Green Bay can support their service, and it also confirms the relationships we’ve built in the community. It shows people are flying out of Green Bay.”
Piette said with GRB’s success, he feels there is no need for passengers to drive to bigger airports in Chicago or Minneapolis.
“We have that one-stop access to really anywhere in the world out of the major hubs we serve,” he said. “For the most part, our air fares are competitive compared to larger airports. We’re not always the cheapest, but even if it’s a little bit of a difference, you don’t need to drive three hours each way and deal with the hassle of Chicago to save a few bucks.”
Impact of the NFL Draft
Green Bay’s hosting of the 2025 NFL Draft “definitely played a role in GRB receiving the honor,” Piette said, with the airport’s efforts in connecting fans and visitors to Titletown standing out.
“Obviously, the draft was a huge event,” he said. “It demonstrated that Green Bay could handle the NFL Draft and did a great job doing so, which means the area can handle other large events. During the draft, we had several additional nonstops and larger aircraft coming in from the airlines. They added nonstop flights from the West Coast, East Coast and Florida.”
Piette said the additional flights performed “really well.”
“They were all full, so that translated into the airlines adding additional flights for regular season Packers’ games for the fall of 2025,” he said. “They added several nonstop flights for away games and home games. Because those flights added during the regular season performed well, I would expect to see more of the same in 2026 once the Packers’ schedule comes out.”
Piette said people should watch for upcoming special activities at the airport, including a free 1940s Big Band Hangar Dance at the Pilotsmith hangar (date TBD).
Over the coming weeks, he said GRB plans to surprise passengers, pilots, students, rental car customers and visitors with small treats as a way of saying thanks to the community.
Piette said to watch the airport’s Facebook page for more details.
Shaping up to be another good year
Piette said coming on the heels of a “very successful year,” 2026 is shaping up to be another strong campaign.
Though at this point, airline schedules are currently confirmed only through the summer, he said the future looks promising, calling it “good news.”
“What we’re seeing is a pretty significant increase in daily flights to/from Chicago,” he said. “United is going up to nine daily flights to Chicago this summer. The most we’ve ever had was seven per day, and that was this past summer. American will go up to at least four, potentially five or six. We’ll be seeing probably 14 or 15 daily flights to/from Chicago.”
Piette said that’s a lot of flights and a lot of seats when you combine them all together.
“That gives our passengers some great options to make those connections in Chicago,” he said. “It’s more than a 20% increase in seats.”
