Arnold Palmer Regional Airport looks for 2nd airline
With a new airport terminal coming online soon at the Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Westmoreland County, there is renewed interest in getting a second airline to call the new space home.
Spirit Airlines has been the only commercial airline operating out of the Arnold Palmer Regional Airport since 2011. And while the airport and the airline still have a good working relationship, with daily flights to Florida and seasonal flights to South Carolina, there has been no hiding Spirit's recent failed airline merger, bankruptcy and other woes over the last few years.
It is for that reason and because in mere months, the Westmoreland County Airport Authority will be opening a brand new terminal with more room and capabilities for more flights, that Gabe Monzo and the Westmoreland County Airport Authority are hiring Volaire, an aviation consulting firm, to help land a second airline at the airport.
"Primarily, we are talking retention and development," Monzo said. "Retention with Spirit. Depending on what Spirit does, we feel that it is important that we support them in any way we can, and we will do that. If they thrive and move on, we will be there with them. If they don't thrive and they have a bump in the road, we have alternatives."
In 2015 alone, Arnold Palmer Regional Airport saw over 350,000 passengers utilizing several Spirit routes to locations in the South and West. And while routes have been scaled back a bit in recent years, last year, the airport still saw over 150,000 people take off and land at its terminal.
The new terminal building is roughly 32,000 square feet, with a price tag of around $22 million that Monzo says has been fully paid for through a variety of public funding amassed over the last 10 years.
Westmoreland County Commissioner Ted Kopas, a Democrat, says that the airport is already an important asset to the county and that this new terminal is going to be great for the entire region.
"Hundreds of millions of dollars in economic activity is generated there every year," Kopas said. "And while that relationship with Spirit and the airport has been really productive over the past 15 years now, you don't know what you don't know. And so, I think the airport is doing their due diligence to make sure that the airport remains viable."
Monzo says that with this new terminal space, they have an even better product now for airlines like Breeze, Avelo, Frontier or Allegiant to potentially utilize. And he says that if just one of those airlines comes in along with Spirit, then the sky's the limit for the airport's future.
"There is a million people out this way, from Monroeville, east," Monzo said. "You have Cambria County, you have the region we call the crescent moon. You got a million people to serve. If you can put 300,000 of them on an airplane and let them go have fun, then great. We'll all be living large."
Now there's no official timetable on when or if a new airline will be coming into Arnold Palmer Regional Airport, but phase one of the new terminal space is set to be complete sometime in the spring of 2026, and the entire terminal project will be completed sometime in 2027.